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GENOA, PISA, AND FLORENCE 



SKETCHES 



GEATQl. PISA, AND FLORENCE 



WITH A DESCRIPTION OF THE 



CATHEDRAL OF MILAN 



^ 



c^ 



^XKnslKWii from i^^t ^xtntl at JnUs Mnin, 



MRS. M? HARRISON ROBINSON. 




PHILADELPHIA: 

LIPPINCOTT, GRAMBO, AND CO. 

1854. 



Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1854. by 

LIPPINCOTT, GRAMBO, AND CO., 

in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United 
States in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



^9 






PKEFACE 



The foUowiag Shetches are selected from M. 
Janin's Yoyage en ItaJie. Tlie interest of this fair 
land, so endowed by nature and so enriched by 
art, is one which can neither be impaired by time 
nor exhausted by description. The chaplet of 
glory which crowns her is but the more hallowed 
with each succeeding century, while the cliefs- 
cVceuvre that compose it, though too dazzling for 
competition, are still the beacon to animate and 
encourage dormant genius, and illumine the steep 
pathway which ascends to immortality. 

The brilliant French writer, whose first impres- 
sions of Italy I have ventured to Anglicize, pre- 
sents them in an original and picturesque style. 



Vi PREFACE. 

I cannot liope to have successfully reflected the 
rich hues of M. Janin's imagination, but simply 
that the shadow may not grow so dim and color- 
less as to be void of outline. 

M. H. E. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

GENOA 13 

PISA 34 

FLORENCE 62 

CATHEDRAL OF MILAN 189 



GENOA. 

Of all the cities bathed by the Italian sea, Genoa 
is incontrovertibly the most beautiful. She leans 
proudly against the Apennines — at her marble feet 
softly murmur the waves of Liguria, that fair sea 
which has been traversed by all classic antiquity 
in such diversified apparel and for causes so vari- 
ous. Two mountains, of man's construction, shelter 
the port, crowded with ships of every nation. At 
the same instant with ourselves, entered in full 
sail, a superb English vessel, which was saluted by 
the Genoese cannon, and returned the courtesy. 
To-morrow we propose to view the town from the 
lofty deck of the. English frigate, majestically re- 
posing in the waters, which she seems to command. 

This collection of palaces entitled Genoa^ is in- 
credible to all but the beholder. For two days, I 
have minutely examined this superb city, whose 
heart no longer beats, whose head is cold, which 

9 



14: GENOA. 

yet lives and moves, even witli that inanimate, 
trunkless frame, such strength and vitality do its 
marble entrails still maintain ; within the circum- 
ference, in effect, are two towns, life and death 
side by side. On the borders of the sea, in the 
port, at the foot of the city, you find activity, 
motion, noise, a crowd — in a word, life, such as 
comports with Italian nations, inhabited ruins, a 
busy, intelligent, commercial population; but, 
ascend higher, perambulate the streets, whose 
broad, hollow flags resound beneath your foot- 
steps, enter, through porticos open to every storm, 
the splendid palaces inhabited by silence; cast your 
eyes upon the drapery of the depopulated saloons 
waving in the wind like funeral-hangings; look 
upward and contemplate the solemn arches, whose 
echo once s^ng only verses of love ; recline against 
the lofty windows, which, of yore, lent their noc- 
turnal light to so many beauties forever vanished, 
which have listened to countless serenades now 
lost in the air ; hearken to this deep silence, ex- 
plore this desert for the last vestiges of annihilated 
grandeur, and say if even Jeremiah's lament over 
the cities doomed to perish, though replete with 
mournful energy, falls not below the level of this 
desolation ! 



GENOA. 15 

Genoa, tlae speck of earth before tis, so adorned 
and so sad, humble, yet enibeliished with snch 
chefs'd'ceiwre ! how diverse have been her for- 
tunes ! The Eomans have been there in turn, as 
they have been everywhere, bearing civilization 
and order in their train of conquest ; the Eastern 
emperors have been masters there; then, like a 
tempest, came the barbarians, those universal in- 
cendiaries ; then Charlemagne, the universal recon- 
structor ; and then, eager with haste, the Moors, 
the accomplished barbarians, the finished masters 
of politeness, literature, gallantry, and courage- 
On this corner of earth have Guelphs and Ghibe- 
lins fought to desperation, after the pattern of the 
civil wars obtained from the heroes of Florence ; 
afterwards, the Pisans and Yenitians coveted the 
port open to their adventures, and disputed it, the 
last as merchants, the first as gentlemen; then 
France repaired to the succor of the town rent by 
factions ; and finally came Doria, who made it a 
republic. 

Meanwhile, there is a memorable day in the 
history of this city and in that of the universe, 
when a man, without name or credit, a poor, ob- 
scure, despised Genoese, departed to return with 
a world more, which he had discovered. Singu- 



16 GENOA, 

lar, intelligent little nook, where are associated 
the names of Lonis XII., Christopher Columbus, 
and Doria! Eeview such a town, if you can, 
without emotions of pity and respect ! Like the 
capitol, Genoa was built for eternity. While 
obeying her Doges, verily the republic sheltered 
worthily these monarchs of a day, for, within this 
narrow compass, are palaces meet for kings as 
Doges. These merchants loved the fine arts as 
nobles, and paid for them like kings. It is thus 
that the greatest artists of the sixteenth Italian 
century, which is probably the most glorious era 
of human genius, crowded to Genoa, understand- 
ing that, on the shores of that sea so dear to poets, 
there lived a people of rich Athenians, employed 
in constructing a town of marble and gold. At 
this tidings, the most illustrious painters, the most 
celebrated sculptors, and especially the greatest 
architects of the world, abandoned their work 
commenced, to go to embellish the rival of Yenice, 
the terra-firma Yenice, more free, and not less fair, 
governed by rich merchants sprung from the peo- 
ple ; the Yenice without spies or informers, exe- 
cutioners, state-prisons, and courtisans; the pure, 
innocent, busy, liberal Yenice, covered with shade, 
surrounded with orange-groves and flowers. Nor 



GENOA. 17 

has Italian art alone come hither to lavish its 
adorable miracles on this sea-coast; France, the 
East, the Indies, Spain, even the New World, have 
been put under contribution to found, erect, orna- 
ment, and furnish these royal abodes. 

Shall we commence with the public palace in 
this town of palaces? Je le veux bien, though 
there is scarce a preference. And yet, as a speci- 
men, what a marvel the ducal palace is ; though 
ruined, insulted, squandered as the implacable, 
stupid violence of revolutions have left it, as they 
ever have, in all places. The ascent is by a mag- 
nificent marble stairway, leaving on the right the 
pedestal on which was the statue of Doria, wickedly 
broken in an eraeute. An immense vestibule, sus- 
tained by eighty columns of solid marble, conducts 
to a grand staircase, divided into spacious flights 
ushering into the council-chamber, and within 
this great hall, beneath these bold, self-supported 
vaults, through an admirable suite of columns 
and pilasters, in niches dug in the wall, stands 
a nation of severe statues. Is it illusion ? The 
mantles of these statues seem agitated by the 
wind ; we might imagine these shrouds had been 
washed on yester evening? What, then, is this 
animated, waving marble, that the breeze arranges 



18 GENOA. 

with such varied, capricious grace, around these 
heroes? Nothing, however, can be more real; 
these statues, fully clad and equipped, which re- 
present the great men of the republic, her legis- 
lators, poets, artists, and soldiers, were broken by 
the populace in one of those impulses of furious 
rage {delirium tremens) which incites multitudes 
to destroy everything in their passage. Juvenal 
has, somewhere, aptly said, " They crush in wrath 
what they have worshipped with awe." These 
are to nations as to individuals, hours of mental 
malady, and then woe to all species of glory, to 
virtue, centuries of antiquity, to creeds, or gran- 
deur, that fall beneath the hands of the furious 
zealots. Thus the people of Genoa have broken 
the images of their great men, as far as possible, 
insulted, disfigured, and mutilated them ; they 
dashed in pieces the casque and cuirass, rent the 
toga and ermine, shivered the wand and sword, 
effaced the name and escutcheon, despoiled the 
sacred monuments of their sovereign insignia ; 
leaving them in this state without respect or pity, 
not reflecting that they thus deprived history of 
all that made it holy, majestic, and venerable. 
Insensate, ungrateful people! But their rage is 
vain ; it can only break, it can annihilate nothing, 



GENOA. 19 

above all, glory. Such is man's power, that, what 
he has himself made, he is impotent to destroy. 
He may create, he cannot obliterate. Behold a 
temple he has overthrown ; he thinks to subvert 
a structure, but' he creates a ruin. He would 
banish history, and founds poetry instead. It is 
thus that, scarcely were they broken, ere these 
venerable images of illustrious Genoese have been 
immediately re-established ; the statues, assassi- 
nated at evening, are on the morrow remounted 
on their bases, as did that of the commander on 
his tomb ; only, as the sculptor was no longer there 
to impart life, a third time, to these assassinated 
great men, a pious, intelligent hand, has gathered 
dust from dust; formless clay has replaced the 
wrought marble of genius ; over it they have 
thrown funeral mantles, and those severed heads 
have been substituted by deceptive effigies. Thus, 
every hero is remodelled by a little clay, skilfully 
arranged. And yet, to see them again assembled 
in that council-chamber which they once inha- 
bited, the effect on the imagination is undimi- 
nished, respect has not been scattered to the 
winds, like the dust of the broken marble. After 
all, what imports it that this clay be more or less 
fashioned ! Kot the representation of the man 



20 GENOA. 

makes the statue revered, but his name. There- 
fore, this hall of council has lost nothing by such 
profanation. I love these phantoms of statues not 
less than the originals, which, when extant, were 
themselves but phantoms of heroes of other days. 
Among relics of past times, there are some of 
slight significance, such as the fragment of a Car- 
thaginian barque, the stones of a Yenitian castle, 
brought by G-enoese from Constantinople, a chain 
captured from the Pisans, a bronze table, which 
has no other signification than a judgment of So- 
man consuls in favor of Genoa, and other petty 
vanities. These Italian towns are proud in their 
poverty. Having ceased to be rich and glorious, 
they desire to preserve their nobility ; and, espe- 
cially tenacious of maintaining the antiquity of 
their origin* heap up to that effect all kinds of 
fragments, marble, bronze, and paper. After the 
ducal palace, the abode of the vanished supremacy 
of the Genoese, we shall visit the hotel of the poor^ 
which is much richer even than that. Three great 
architects have reared this house, the luxury of 
whose arrangements is incredible. It contains a 
beautiful Christ of Michael Angelo, reposing in 
the arms of the blessed Yirgin, an admirable piece 
of marble. The high altar is in the complete 



GENOA. 21 

style of Pierre Pnget, the Frencli Michael Angelo ; 
here the Yirgin, who before sustained Christ, is 
herself supported bj angels bearing her to the 
skies. "What beautiful infants wafted upon their 
light wings ! What a holy, pure, calm, charming 
Yirgin ! How much grace and strength combined 
in that happy group flying towards heaven, bear- 
ing the mother of the Saviour, the Angel without 
wings! Pierre Puget is assuredly the greatest 
artist France has produced ; Genoa abounds in 
his works. Doubtless, the Genoese, with a mar- 
vellous instinct in which Louis XIY. was deficient, 
were the first to divine their noble neighbor, the 
statuary of Marseilles, for they possess more chefs- 
d'o&uvre of Puget than the palace of Yersailles 
contains. Compare them, if you be so bold, these 
beauteous angels of Puget with the chubby faces 
of both sexes, which in reality are of no sex, in 
the church of St. Lawrence, that Canova calls 
angels! Within this house, or rather palace of 
the poor, all is silence, freshness, beauty, repose, 
and murmur. Over that exquisite chapel, full of 
marvels, open the dormitories of the happy pau- 
pers, the veritably sovereign masters of all this 
magnificence. The indigent, not admitted within 
the sanctuary, receive daily food and winter vest- 



22 GENOA. 

ments at tlie door; a true Italian benevolence, 
improvident and unlimited, a cliaritj more fatal 
than useful, a Christian nursery of mendicant and 
philanthropist, two scourges which cultivate and 
nourish each other. In a well-constituted govern- 
ment, little encouragement should be extended to 
these charitable men, who devote themselves to 
the indiscriminate maintenance of all the idle 
who solicit alms. They are infinitely more dan- 
gerous than those of ambitious pursuits or covet- 
ous of glory. Commend me to ambition for pro- 
moting national interests ! The ambitious man 
sheds around him all kinds of useful passions and 
new ideas; he is active, persevering, laborious, 
and intelligent, divines every available avenue of 
knowledge, .rears his children with scrupulous 
care, perfectly conscious that his career is replete 
with perils to be avoided, dangers to be foreseen. 
The ambitious aspirant is the king of the future, 
while the benevolent man, on the contrary, exer- 
cises, for his own comfort, the easiest of all virtues 
and the most insignificant, charity. He sows his 
alms at random, to reap mendicants; reposes in 
that facile virtue which consists in bestowing the 
remains of his bread on those unwilling to gain 
it ; and, destitute of foresight or precaution, trains 



GENOA. 23 

his cliildren to imitate their father, in thus in- 
discriminately lavishing the embarrassing super- 
fluity of their fortune. Around such a man in- 
dustry languishes, the laborious are discouraged, 
and consider it folly to toil amid so many, living 
without effort. A wise government, if desirous 
to advance, should mistrust charity far more 
than ambition. But this will ever be incompre- 
hensible to the Italians. To give alms as they 
practise it, is a profession of the indolent ; to be 
really ambitious, would be to them the labor of 
heroes, to remove the pillars of Hercules. You 
may imagine if the poor are thus lodged in marble 
and gold, neither of these, nor rare paintings, are 
wanting in the churches; and, in effect, the like 
admirable profusion exists in all the churches of 
Genoa. I have examined them generally, and in 
these well-preserved temples, on the flags covered 
with escutcheons, in presence of chefs-d^ceuvre of 
all the arts, in an atmosphere fragrant and balmy 
with flowers, under vaults glittering with graceful 
imagery relieved with gold, on which light breaks 
in colored reflections through Gothic windows, at 
the foot of marble altars, where taper and incense 
burn unceasingly, and which are never without 
prayer, I have comprehended, for the first time, 



24 GENOA. 

that perpetual admiration, tliat continual impulse 
to devotion, wliich constitutes the most lively, in- 
destructible passion of Italy. Admiration is fa- 
tiguing, without doubt; but how shall I suppress 
it, how refrain from expressing my boundless 
enthusiasm? And when they say to me, "Be- 
ware! moderate your emotion; how will it be 
when before St. Peter's at Eome ?" I know not ; 
but, meanwhile, it is impossible for me not to 
bend the knee in the Church of the Annunciation. 
And how it elucidates what we before deemed 
ourselves perfectly cognizant of; to pass to and 
fro under this beautilful sky, to tread the happy 
earth, to enter freely beneath these arched vaults 
and salute such works of genius ; to behold, com- 
pare, touch them, and inquire, where has life passed, 
unblessed by the enjoyment of these countless won- 
ders? Eepeatedly, they say to me, " Thou dream- 
est, happy man ;" and verily a fair vision. They 
believe me returned to the impassioned enchant- 
ments of early youth, when all is love, poetry, 
enthusiasm, and admiration ; the bird that sings in 
the tree, waving its foliage in the air, the breeze 
rising to meet the sun, the humming insect floating 
over nature, the wave with its glitter, its freshness, 
and murmur. It is in youth that we admire the 



GENOA. 25 

grass, flowers, stars, sky, the pale scintillating light 
of August evening ; but it is for maturer years to 
appreciate marble, pictures, palaces, ruins, chefs- 
(Toeuvre^ all the scattered beauties cast by antiquity 
on the Christian world, which the Middle Age has 
bequeathed to the modern. "What is the admira- 
tion of twenty years? A rose withering on a 
mistress's bosom. Ten years later, it is a frag- 
ment of brown marble under a Grecian sun, the 
verse of a poet, one of those thousand rays that 
time has disdained to remove with the end of that 
scythe, which is at once a crotchet and a sword. 
And then, to comprehend finally the power of times 
that are no more, what modesty it induces ! To 
survey the vast theatre of such dramas and poems, 
histories and visions, how it enlightens studies in 
which imaginary proficiency had been attained ! 

In effect, since arriving in this highly-favored 
land, our admired prose-writers, Tacitus and Titus- 
Livius; our favorite poets, Horace and Yirgil, 
have emitted a sudden, vivid light before un- 
imagined ; while the towns encompassed by ruined 
trenches, the crumbling edifices whose tower yet 
remains, elucidate the civil wars and bloody con- 
flicts of Italy. In these charming fields, watered 
by numberless little brooks, in the green pastures 



26 GENOA. 

wTiere tlie great oxen of tlie Greorgics ruminated, 
I "understand, or rather I discover Yirgil ; Horace 
will doubtless come later, when the Tiber is before 
me ; Naples will illustrate Ovid and the imperial 
voluptuousness ; so with Dante in traversing the 
streets of Florence. Behold, then, a new world 
opening before me, a world of poetry and fairy- 
land ! And I, insensate that I was, hesitated to 
depart ! 

Moreover, I could never before comprehend that 
oft-repeated reply of the Doge, when forced by the 
insolence of Louis XIY. to repair from Genoa to 
Yersailles, to humble the republic. Conducting 
the noble stranger into the gardens of the palace, 
upon lawns trodden by a whole century of great 
men, amid the sound of a thousand fountains which 
shot into the'air at a gesture of the master, escort- 
ing him through the immense galleries and vast 
saloons, a universe of marble and gold, pausing 
continually that he might admire all those miracles 
newly-wrought in that barren spot, the review end- 
ing in the salle du trone, at the foot of the throne, 
erected in the most magnificent site that could 
have been selected in the kingdom of France, 
when they inquired what most astonished him at 
Yersailles, " To see myself there," was his reply. 



GENOA. 27 

This resj)onse amazed the whole court of Louis 
XI Y., being altogether incomprehensible. His- 
torians repeat without explaining it ; honest aca- 
demicians, nay, M. Scribe himself, have applied 
the phrase, while ignorant of its meaning. To un- 
derstand its sense, which is really clear and simple, 
though little adapted to young disciples of the 
French academy, it is necessary to visit Grenoa, 
and survey her palaces. Truly, the courtiers of 
Yersailles, in thinking to astonish the Doge of 
Genoa by pomp and magnificence, were ignorant 
of the town from whence he came. Had they 
known that this merchant, representing a city of 
merchants, had himself a palace of Versailles, that 
he inhabited a street filled with such, they would 
not have so flippantly inquired, " What most as- 
tonished you here, Monseigneur ?" 

And with what was this man to be astonished? 
A stone palace? His was of marble. Pillars of 
marble? He had pillars of porphyry. At co- 
lumns of porphyry? His walls were of lapis- 
lazuli. By such architects as Mansard ? His were 
Francis Falcona, Andrea his brother, and Charles 
Fontana, who erected the obelisk at Eome, and 
constructed more beautiful stairways than those of 
Versailles. Your statues were by Coybesox, his 



28 GENOA. 

by Puget; Lebrun was the king's painter, the 
Doge's was called Paul Veronese ; the king's por- 
trait was executed by Mignard, Y an Dyke painted 
the wife, child, and dog of the Doge of Genoa. 

What, then, could astonish him in all these 
wonders of Versailles, whose chamber was painted 
by Aldrovardini, of which Eomanelli designed the 
tapestries ? Who had in his employment Correggio, 
Titian, the two Caracci ! What could astonish him, 
this king of a republic, who did not purchase, at 
random, the pictures of masters, but who, from 
father to son, summoned great painters and said 
to them : " I must have a chef-d^oeuvre at this place I" 
Who thus commanded Tintoret, as had his grand- 
father, Albert Durer ! A man that had summoned 
a Paul Veronese, expressly to cover a portion of 
the wall of h*s house, could aught astonish him ? 
A garden of statues ! but, around his palace were 
hanging-gardens like those of Babylon. Could 
the waters of Versailles surprise him, when an im- 
mense aqueduct cast, as it still does, an entire river 
through the city of Genoa? And as to the re- 
mainder of the royal splendor, what was there to 
astonish this good Doge, whose house contained 
the precious marbles of Italy, the riches of Japan 
and China, the perfumes of the East and mirrors 



GENOA. 29 

of Venice, he who, in cliildliood, had sat to Eu- 
bens for his picture ? The more minnte the exa- 
mination of Genoese architecture, the more evident 
the force of the Doge's reply. A Genoese palace, 
representing a true model of an illustrious epoch, 
is even externally embellished with marble and 
paintings ; the flight of steps is immense ; the ves- 
tibule adorned with statues ; through a long suit 
of antique busts, you reach the vast doors, which 
open spontaneously, and thus, unobstructed, may 
penetrate into the resplendent ruins. Then, is pre- 
sented to view all that grandeur which so many 
revolutions have been powerless to annihilate. 
Enter, the saloons are open, the table is still ar- 
ranged for the feast of Banquo ; only, the places 
are vacant. Advance fearlessly, silence is the 
solitary inhabitant of these abodes, echo alone is 
startled by your footsteps, and yet what involun- 
tary respect is excited beneath these high and 
sonorous vaults! In effect, it is that a whole cen- 
tury of splendor and glory has left, within the walls, 
the unobliterated traces of its passage. The cen- 
tury is dead, but its abode is unchanged. Ask 
not where are the tombs, while the palaces remain ! 
Thus, amid marshes, and surrounded with bram- 
bles, might be the palace of the Queen that slept 



80 GENOA. 

for a hundred years. In that of the Genoese, all 
things are in place, as if the master and family 
were about to reawake suddenly from their long 
sleep. The ante-chamber awaits the valets, inso- 
lent and armed to the teeth, as in the Eomeo of 
Shakspeare. The inner cabinet is full of papers 
and books of the master, and a glance informs 
you that Dante has spoken, Columbus departed, 
that Galileo is released by the Holy Ofiice. Enter 
that solemn chamber, still furnished with its gar- 
niture of ivory and ebony. Y enice has sent thither 
her hangings and her mirrors, her gilt leather and 
pictures ; the nuptial couch is canopied, the toilet 
arranged, even the remnant of paint is there, where- 
with the dead have decked themselves in festal 
hours. Proceed onward in this abode of silence ; 
all is in order ; here, the cradle of the infant, the 
sword of the young man, the cuirass of the cap- 
tain, the arm-chair of the sire; — their portraits 
regard you, passing with head uncovered, in reve- 
rence for these living generations. Again, folding 
doors open wide, to admit you, the guests of an 
hour. Kow, behold the rich saloons, wherein the 
sixteenth century has lavished all its magnificence. 
Great names and mighty passions have gar- 
nished these halls ; the passions are vanished, the 



GENOA. 31 

names nearly forgotten ; tlie ball -lustres wave as 
at the IsLStfete; the velvet seats await the dancers. 
Silence! jewelled youth approaches; in the adja- 
cent banquet-hall, at that long table, covered with 
glass, bronze, silver, and gold, guests are about to 
sit. Meantime, more distant cabinets are open for 
political converse; the chapel is ready for prayer; 
the theatre invites; vast kitchens await but a little 
fire in their furnaces ; high above, in a carved bal- 
cony, musicians are expected, and, reflected by the 
brilliant mirrors, you will shortly see gliding, the 
beautiful Italians, with black eyes sparkling on the 
pure, transparent cheek. How delightful, if amid 
this silence could he heard the Eomanesca, drawn 
from oblivion by the violin of Baillot! 

Thus constructed, redundantly ornamented and 
furnished, are all these deserted palaces. The pro- 
prietor himself opens the door to you, being rather 
the guardian than master, and, ruined as he is, 
would deem himself dishonored in wresting a 
single picture from the rich walls, or in selling a 
solitary article of his magnificent apartments. 
Such a man possesses pictures of a million in 
value, who, for ten years, has not donned a new 
hat. All these palaces, thus held sacred, are pub- 
lic. The visitor may boldly enter, for they are 



32 GENOA. 

filled witli chefs-cVoeuvfe only. If by chance one 
be inhabited, fear not to enter; the master will 
retreat, his wife and daughter give place to you, 
conscious, these hospitable gentlemen, that not to 
themselves alone belongs the enjoyment of all 
these miracles. 

Finally, taking reluctant leave of this sombre 
magnificence, of the admirable street, Bulbi and 
Neuve, with its nohlQfagade designed by Eubens, 
a collection of which he published at Venice, then, 
ascending the ramparts, reach the port through 
those formidable batteries of cannon which no 
longer inspire fear; go, like us, in a bark towards 
the centre, and from that point admire the vast 
amphitheatre of houses, hospitals, mountains, ver- 
dure, and marble. Though we, more fortunate 
than you will be, were received with the most 
beneficent hospitality on board the fine English 
vessel Pembroke. Extending his hand, the com- 
mander prayed us to excuse the absence of his 
band, which was in the city, then exhibited to us 
the construction of that mighty machine, so skilful 
and well disciplined, with its cannons, musketry, 
three masts, sailors, soldiers, and hospital, where 
a man may die comfortably in his hammock. 
Meanwhile, in the distant view was Genoa, in full 



GENOA. 83 

outline, motionless, and resigned, absorbed by Sa- 
voy — by Savoy! And for myself, in beholding 
tliose two commercial people, the English and 
Genoese, face to face, the one masters of the sea, 
the other scarce masters of their port; the first as 
high in the scale of nations as the last once "was, 
seeing a single Englishman, as it were, defyingthese 
ramparts charged with cannon, the city, once the 
seat of the Doges, the nation of Doria, once mas- 
ters of the East, I was tempted to turn towards 
the English, tranquilly drinking their grog, and, 
pointing to that profound abasement and misery, 
exclaim, withBossuet, Erudimini^ "Be admonished, 
O nation of merchants !" 



PISA. 

We are now arrived at anotlier Eepublic, wHch 
has enacted an important, though, transient part 
among those of Italy. Pisa claims the honor of 
having been founded by the Greeks, and even yet 
preserves a kind of indescribable, Athenian per- 
fume. She maintains, and ever will to the end of 
time, that she was not conquered by Eome, but 
voluntarily submitted to the empire. The name 
of Pisans is inscribed, and not ingloriously, in 
the ^neid," that admirable Eoman genealogy. 
The port of Pisa was celebrated in olden times ; 
but first the sea receded from it, and next came 
the barbarians, for the history is similar of all the 
Italian towns. At the zenith of their prosperity 
are seen descending upon the affrighted popula- 
tions those terrible missionaries of barbarism, 
Alaric, Attila, Genseric, and Odoacre ; blasphemy 
and ruin, torch and sword in their train. Then, 
total darkness' — engulfing towns, men, laws. 



PISA. 85 

-usages, till the period when the first rays from 
the dawning liberties of Ke^aissance glide into 
that night of the Middle Age. By these glimmer- 
ings, nations imbedded in pow(Jer are discerned 
reviving to hope; anew, they essay strength and 
thought ; then towns begin to emerge from their 
ruins ; republics arise from the dust ; interrupted 
ages recommence. And thus it is till these resus- 
citated communities shall be strong enough to 
devour each other, comprising an endless history, 
equally fruitful of brigands and heroes. Do not 
apprehend the details of that history here. I pre- 
fer that you divine it in traversing these silent 
streets, and deserted valleys, the country with its 
dismantled towers, broken battlements, destroyed 
ramparts, and flourishing fields; for, Dieu merci, 
verdure is eternal as the sun. Man may lay a 
city in ashes, but he cannot exterminate the lily 
of the valley, whose imperishable magnificence 
Solomon has celebrated. Sacrilegious mortal, who 
seekest, within thee, the secret of thy nothingness 
or grandeur, thou may est shiver marble and 
bronze into fragments, but canst not dry the least 
spring of water in the depth of the forest ! Thou 
may est cast silence and death within these walls. 



86 PISA. 

but not arrest a note of tlie matinal lark whose 
song salutes the sunrise! 

Moreover, nothing is wholly effaced from earth ; 
ruins are almost immortal; they constitute the 
sacred ashes of towns that are no more! Pisa, 
meantime, is not a ruin; she hovers, as it were, 
between life and death. She belongs to the 
Middle Age, without having advanced or receded. 
Noise and activity have abandoned her like the 
sea, whose roar is heard in the distance, never 
again to approach the walls it has forsaken. Let 
us then contemplate her, extended in her marble 
coffin, and beautiful even in death, this once war- 
like and commercial town, which has been the 
rival of Venice, the mistress of Carthage, and, in 
time of the Crusades, possessed her kingdom on 
African soil. Happy in still being protected by 
the works of certain great artists of which she is 
the mother, or was the nurse ; for, had she nothing 
beside her quays on the Arno, her high walls and 
dismantled towers, and the vanished renown his- 
tory has given her, Pisa were but a vain title lost 
in space, a far-off, echoless sound. 

Fortunately, from all her past glory, the edifices 
she has reared, the towns she has overturned, 
from all her conquests and ruins, there remain to 



PISA. 37 

Pisa three imperishable cliefs-d^ceuvre — the Duomo, 
Leaning Tower, and Campo Santo ; and with such 
debris, a city is immortal though in ruins. And 
to the writer of these pages, though arriving here 
under the influence of the dazzling magnificence 
of Genoese palaces — of all that exquisite art, 
matchless gorgeousness, of works of genius, se- 
lected during the most splendid epoch — thus fall- 
ing from the sixteenth Italian century into the 
thirteenth and fourteenth — this retrograde step 
has been far from terrific. 

The mere aspect of these masses of stone in- 
stantly impressed me with awe, so replete are 
they with imposing majesty. In architecture, 
what is grand is nearly akin to the beautiful. 
Furthermore, in respect to art,- the first efforts of 
genius in an awakened people bear upon them an 
indescribably sacred and mighty impress, which 
envelops them with reverence. Would a man 
deem it an auspicious moment to exercise the 
faculty of taste when at the summit of the Leaning 
Tower? or what imagination so expansive as to 
compose a petty critique beneath the Duomo? or 
calculate the stones of the Cemetery? Eespect 
and feeling are sufficient, to estimate properly these 
bold monuments of past ages. Thus, in all humi- 



88 PISA. 

lity is it that I have studied in broad detail these 
three great works of art ; and even yet I see them 
in my heart of heart, mirrored as in a camera 
obscura. The three monuments occupy a site in 
front of the town, in a vast space which they com- 
pletely fill with their magnitude and shadow, 
indebted to no profane edifice for shade. The 
Duomo, Tower, and Cemetery, form a single work, 
the varied cantos of one and the same epic and 
Christian poem, very aptly comparable to the 
Divina Commedia^ for it is none other than Dante 
who inspired these beautiful , pages — here, life — 
there, death — above, heaven — below, the tomb; 
between these two monuments, so diverse, that 
high, ever-crumbling tower, and the Campo Santo, 
devoted to unbroken silence, till, with the rest of 
the world, it shall mingle in the resounding val- 
ley of Jehoshaphat, rises the church, as if to re- 
unite by a sacred link what the artist has sepa- 
rated. The Pisan Duomo was erected after a 
victory gained by the Eepublic over the Sara- 
cens ; it is the first Grothic monument of Italy, 
constructed at that solemn era of art, when the 
Eenaissance was manifesting its power. Pilgrim- 
ages to and from the East had gradually imbued 
the Pisans with taste and passion for great monu- 



PISA. 80 

ments, wHcli siLOuld mark to future times tlie trace 
of nations. Pisa is anterior to Florence in love of 
illustrious art ; but only for the space of a day did 
she precede a city destined to be sovereign arbitress 
of modern genius. Singular .and providential 
commencement of the fine arts in Europe! It 
was by stealing here and there from Greece, Eome, 
and the oriental cities their most portable monu- 
ments, that this noble passion was engendered in 
Mediaeval towns. At first, it seemed more easy 
and simple to wrest a pillar from some ruined 
temple of Thebes or Memphis, than to carve it 
out of the natal rock and scnlpture it on the site 
itself. Chance is, therefore, the true architect of 
these first gigantic efforts of Italy. They com- 
mence by a perpetual borrowing of all kinds of 
materials, a pell-mell of chefs-d'oeuvre. The founda- 
tions of a pagan temple originally served to build 
the Christian church ; its debris to ornament it ; 
the mutilated statues of false gods became the 
venerated images of martyrs. ISTay, upon the pin- 
nacle of the Pisan temple stands with extended 
wings a bronze hippogriff, brought from Constan- 
tinople, doubtless that no mystery should be for- 
gotten in that mystical collection of all the fables 
of antiquity and verities of Christianity. Thus, 



40 PISA. 

it is not the boldness of architecture, nor its sin- 
gular character that strikes the attention; but the 
infinite details of that mountain of marble, at once 
Grecian and Gothic, so elaborately wrought by 
every sort of Christian and profane chisel, half 
sepulchre and chapel, redolent of creeds and ca- 
prices — an immense wall, whereon great artists 
have essayed their naissant strength ; an imperfect 
stammering, but not devoid of elegance and grace, 
which wonderfully announced future works of 
genius. What a revolution was that, when Italy, 
escaping at length from the stupid, savage barba- 
rism of the thirteenth century, commences the first 
noble efforts which should render her liberty and 
genius. Upon this ancient territory of Pisa, with- 
in the soil of Tuscany, which gave the alert to 
the rest of fhe world, a few nameless sculptors 
were the first to give a contradiction full of genius 
to that bastard art transplanted into Italy by 
Mediaeval Greeks, with which the miserable Italians 
were so long content. On one of those auspicious 
days, however, of a general peace, they suddenly 
reflected that the chefs-d^oeuvre of antique Greece 
were surely not inferior to the shapeless works of 
her modern barbarism. This was a new, strange, 
bold revelation, by which the inspired Italians 



PISA. 41 

quickly profited. Approach, and regard that door 
of the Pisan cathedral, said to be of Byzantium ; 
for barbarous as it now seems, it once unfolded 
wide to admit Nicolo of Pisa in his glory, the man 
who fully awoke ancient Greece, sleeping for so 
many centuries in her marble sarcophagus. Yea, 
let us tread respectfully the vacant space that 
separates the three great monuments of Pisa, for 
in this spot commenced the fine arts of Italy! 
Here was originated the Florentine — the art ^ar 
excellence. Here, the fourteenth, fifteenth, and six- 
teenth centuries learned to cut marble, to raise 
stone, to cast bronze, to sculpture wood, prepare 
silver and gold, and to embellish miles in extent 
with painting. Be patient, for in that strange 
confusion of forms, colors, metals, materials, and 
efforts, great artists of futurity will readily recog- 
nize and discover all resources necessary to them. 
And what, think you, must be that art of which 
the Duomo, Baptistry, and Campo Santo of Pisa, 
those inestimable marvels, are but rude and im- 
perfect lineaments ! 

In the year 1063, the Pisans, the first to awake 

to that light proceeding from profane antiquity, 

rich merchants who had acquired fortune sword 

in hand, resolved to employ their immense wealth, 

4^ 



42 PISA. 

and the memorials of their expeditions, in erecting 
within the town a monument, so complete, grand, 
and gorgeous, as to surpass everything in Christ- 
ian Italy. To this effect, they sought in Greece 
architects, painters, sculptors, and even masons. 
They summoned to this work all endowed with 
genius or industry, devoting an entire century, 
and the superfluity of their fortune, to the enter- 
prise. All the incipient arts obeyed these great 
Seigneurs of the sea. Brazen walls rose in the 
air, whose barbarous surface was covered with 
sculpture and mosaic more barbarous still. They 
heaped in this place their collected spoils of tombs 
and altars ; and thus did the Tower of Pisa, when 
scarcely finished, become, as it were, the beacon 
from whose eminence Tuscan genius might con- 
template the future! 

Let us penetrate beneath these vaulted ceilings 
which fifty pillars support aloft. The church is 
an immense Latin cross, surrounded by columns 
and pilasters of every order of architecture. It 
might be said to be composed of specimens of 
precious marbles, imported by giants. Between 
the pillars, and within the numerous chapels, 
sculptor and painter have profusely cast statues 
and pictures. In the choir, not far from the tomb 



PISA. 43 

of the Archbisliop of Pisa, are three bronze statues 
of Giovanni of Bologna, the great artist, to be 
encountered whenever the Kepnblic of Florence 
had need of a chef-cToeuvre. There, also, is buried 
the enemy of Florence and friend of Pisa, King 
Henry YII., celebrated by Dante himself; and 
there too did the great artist Nicolo, and his wor- 
thy son, Griovanni, first test their skill; men of 
illustrious talent, only excelled by Michael An- 
gelo, who absorbed all their renown. Amid these 
admirable essays of an art ere long to be called 
Florentine, the spectator is dazzled and confound- 
ed. It is thus that in reading some grand battle 
recital of Philip de Comines, are dimly fore- 
shadowed great writers yet to come. Beside the 
vast Dome rises the Baptistry; in that place, it is 
only a chapel; in another, the Baptistry would be 
a cathedral. But what an elegant cathedral ! The 
school of Pisa has produced nothing more excel- 
lent ! The door served as model to that of the 
Baptistry of Florence, which Michael Angelo calls 
the Gate of Paradise! .. I can tell you neither the 
number nor form of the pillars of the Baptistry, 
the color or polish of the marbles ; and can scarcely 
allude to the pulpit sculptured by Nicolo of Pisa, 
and the baptismal fonts supported by porphyry co- 



44: PISA.' 

lumns, the spoils of the east. It is certainly very 
grand, and yet a work of exquisite delicacy. Be- 
neath the hand of these masters, bronze and mar- 
ble assumed every variety of form and idea. So 
proud were the old Pisans of that work of the 
great Mcolo, that it was the duty of the podestat 
to maintain an armed guard around si admirabile 
opera. It was in bas-relief that he first commenced 
the mighty revolution in art, which Michael An- 
gelo was to accomplish. In 1232, he had already 
sculptured the "urn of St. Dominico at Bologna, 
the admirable gem for which Italy surnamed him 
ISTicolo dall ''urno. It was not till later years that 
he executed the bas-reliefs of the pulpit of St. 
John. This man revived antique art, if not by 
force of genius, by dint of perseverance. He was 
the master o# Arnolpho of Florence, of his son 
and worthy competitor, Griovanni of Pisa, and of 
Andrea del Pisa, who devoted twenty -two years 
to the execution of one of the doors of the Bap- 
tistry at Florence, which Andrea was the master 
of Donatello and Ghiberti. Such was the illus- 
trious sculptor of the pulpit of St. John. Unfor- 
tunately, this master-piece of art has been barba- 
rously degraded in many places. More than one 
chiselled head has been wrenched from a beautiful 



PISA. 45 

form, reposing in attitude of respect ; more than 
one deprived of tlie arm whicli it animated with 
thought. The Pisan chronicles accuse Lorenzo of 
Medici in person of these unworthy mutilations. 
II quale^ per ornare il suo museo tronco harharementej 
a molto figure^ le teste, le hraccio a le gamhe. " This 
man, to adorn his own museum, barbarously wrested 
from many forms, the head, arm, and leg." Such 
was the furious ardor of the Medici to augment 
their museum, that, despite the horror of such a 
profanation, I will not swear the Pisan chronicle 
has spoken falsely. Now let us ascend to the 
summit of the Leaning Tower, one of the most 
celebrated wonders of Italy. It is entirely of 
marble ; the ascent is by two hundred and ninety- 
three steps cut in the wall, lighted by large win- 
dows. Having attained the summit, a ladder con- 
ducts still higher, and you find yourself elevated 
above the loftiest spires of the Campanila ; here, 
are the formidable bronze statues of the Yirgin, 
Passion, and Justice, which meanwhile have been 
unable to shake that fortress, half couched in the 
earth. 

How has that inclination of the tower happen- 
ed ? By will of the architect ? by an earthquake ? 
by the sinking of the ground ? None can tell. 



46 PISA. 

Art, at that era, was too serious and sacred a tiling 
to indulge such caprices, which, in all the arts, 
ordinarily pertain only to exhausted genius. But, 
on the other hand, how is it possible to explain 
that deviation of fifteen feet, which would involve 
the ruin of any other edifice far less considerable 
than the Tower of Pisa, whose height is at least 
one hundred and ninety feet? This tower and 
dome recall Galileo, the Michael Angelo of science. 
From its pinnacle, he calculated the fall of heavy 
bodies, as, at twenty years, he divined the pendu- 
lum by following, with the attention of genius, the 
motion of the iron lamp, still suspended from the 
ceiling of the cathedral. The lamp of Galileo is 
exhibited like the apple of Kewton. What men, 
to make such discoveries without affright! while 
we, feeble mortals, cling tremblingly to the stone 
balustrade, and reel with vertigo from merely 
viewing in the distance the mountains of Lucca, 
the aquedacts, the deep blue sea, Leghorn, and its 
port. 

But of all the great works here collected, of 
all the miracles erected in this place by the hand 
of man, the most singular is yet to be described. 

Leave these heights, and descend into that im- 
mense tomb open at our feet, and learn the final 



PISA. 47 

destination of glory, authority, science, power, and 
liberty ; for at the foot of this tower, which seems 
to retreat from it with dread — nnder the holy 
shadow of the cathedral which protects it, not far 
from the Baptistry, that sacred door through 
which the Christian enters life, stretches the 
Campo Santo, partially hidden beneath its arcades 
and funeral cypresses. The Campo Santo was the 
cemetery of this Pisan Eepublic when she had 
heroes, defenders, magistrates, and great artists to 
sepulture. As long as the Eepublic continued 
strong, powerful, and glorious, the Campo Santo 
was open to her dead; it closed with her last 
great man. The history of Pisa and her national 
cemetery accomplished their task at the same 
hour. Here, then, at last, is what men style a 
pantheon, an inviolable, logical pantheon, where 
apotheosis of evening is not changed to impreca- 
tions on the morrow ! Behold, at length, a poetic 
cemetery, free from confusion, where each holds 
equal rank in the same glorious nothingness ! In 
effect, the earth, by an admirable privilege brought 
expressly from Jerusalem, devours the corpses 
entrusted to it ; it leaves naught of the man save 
his name and his glory. And wherefore need a 
mortal possess eternally six feet of earth of which 



48 PISA. 

to vaunt ? The Campo Santo scarce lends him, 
for a few days, this last domain of his ambition, 
and then, there remains nothing of his dead body; 
not even that nameless thing of which TertuUian 
speaks. In this crowded yet vacant cemetery, the 
grave-digger of Hamlet could have found no skull 
to serve for a text to his philosophy, not a bone 
whereof to jest with his comrades; scarcely could 
the Prince of Denmark have culled a little grass 
to weave the nuptial crown of Ophelia ! In this 
solemn place, the true field of repose, where all is 
at rest, even the dead, there is perfect equality; 
no confusion, no preference, no ambition, as in 
our cemetery of Pere Lachaise — that melancholy 
caricature of life's vanities — only names inscribed 
on stone, and above them an immortal funeral 
oration; not the panegyric of one amidst a crowd, 
but the eternal eulogy of History in honor of all 
whom this hospitable earth has devoured. When, 
therefore, the ancient Pisans desired to bestow a 
meet recompense on warlike virtue, or on civil, 
not less worthy of tribute, they judged nothing 
more honorable than to transport this earth from 
Jerusalem. Around this sacred soil, they reared 
high walls and light arches as in a cloister. It 
was Giovanni of Pisa, son of Nicolo, who cut these 



PISA. 49 

open-worked stones, so well adapted to the soft 
rajs of a June moon, and wliicli lose much of their 
power and charm by daylight. Then, the walls 
being erected, when Giovanni of Pisa had com- 
pleted his work, the Eepublic abandons the fune- 
ral enclosure to her favorite artists, that they 
might embellish the common tomb, which was 
likewise to be theirs. Singular task, of which we, 
the impassioned, enthusiastic children of the pre- 
sent, can have no idea ! 

All her artists, with solemn promptitude, obeyed 
that appeal of a grateful country. They wished 
that not a panel of these funeral walls should 
remain naked or void ; that at least there might 
be an echo in the silence, a crowd in that solitude. 
It is impossible to describe the effect of these 
paintings, partially effaced by time, but which still 
witness the genius and religious faith of their 
authors. In vain would the tearful eye seek to 
discover some obliterated traces of the earliest 
attempts of Tuscan genius; scarcely by means of 
a few unsullied lines, can we discern the simple 
dramas with which these old walls are charged. 
On these defaced stones have practised the best 
pupils of Giotto, the man who divined painting, 
and who was not followed in the route he had 



50 PISA. 

• 

marked till a century after by Brunelesco, Dona- 
tello, and Masaccio, the great masters. But few 
of tlieir names are yet legible on tbe walls of this 
noble cemetery. Buffamalco, the spirituel buf- 
foon, celebrated by Boccaccio, the delight of Flo- 
rence, where his Ion-mots wqtg repeated, who died 
at the hospital in shouts of laughter, and Bruno 
di Giovanni, the friend of Buffamalco, but a jea- 
lous one, whom the head of Cain deprived of sleep. 
There are also Simone Memmi, Spinello Aretino, 
Pietro Orvietro, Benozzo Gozzoli, artificers in co- 
loring, of the school of Cimabue, but with less 
simplicity and inspiration than their master. 

Pre-eminent above all, in that memorable dawn 
of the fourteenth century, was the great Orgagna, 
a kind of Michael Angelo precursor, one of the 
first to devotfe himself to the work of illustrating 
the walls of the Campo Santo. This Orgagna 
was, at the same time, a sculptor, painter, architect, 
and poet, a usage not uncommon in the thirteenth, 
fourteenth, and fifteenth barbarous centuries; he 
was one of the first Italians that had read Dante, 
and was imbued with the fanaticism of a devotee 
for that new poetry. The " Inferno," the " Last 
Judgment," worlds wandering in space, all the 
metaphysics — I had almost said all the theology of 



PISA. 51 

this poetry — constituted the sole pre-occnpation 
of Andrea Orgagna. Thus wrapt in the verses of 
Dante, he wished to retrace upon the walls of the 
Campo Santo, the "Inferno" of the Divina Comme- 
dia. But still, this great genius discerned in the 
poesy of Alighieri, only the form, coloring, action, 
and drama ; he comprehended not its inmost melan- 
choly, nor its hidden pathos, nor its profound sad- 
ness. He had but the presentiment of that pro- 
fane beauty, which was, later, to inspire Eaffaelle. 
What ravishing heads escaped from the hand of 
this genius ! but heads often void of expression, 
and hence of grandeur. He manifestly but spelled 
the terrible poem that Michael Angelo was to know 
by heart. At best, Orgagna has but sketched the 
"Last Judgment" on the walls of the Campo Sanfco, 
Michael Angelo has completed it at the Yatican. 
Orgagna is not the only one among the artists 
of the thirteenth century inspired by Dante. On 
the contrary, they are all, to a certain extent, the 
ingenious or terrible offspring of the divine poet. 
At the cemetery of Pisa, Buffamalco has repre- 
sented all the heavens described by the Divina 
Commedia; God holds all the seven in his mighty 
hand. In the Triumph of Deaths the same Andrea 
Orgagna, after the example of Alighieri, has 



52 PISA. 

placed his enemies and friends in that " Inferno," 
whicli, like Dante, lie has divided into gulfs {bolgia)] 
he is here, fantastic, facetious, and satirical. Not 
far from the Triumph of Death^ a worthy pupil of 
Giotto has delineated the Patriarchs of the Desert ; 
an austere subject, it is true: but meanwhile, in 
the midst of these stern brows, see you that pretty 
maiden under the smiling cowl of a monk ? Thus 
did Meyerbeer in the Huguenots, at the benedic- 
tion of the poignards, conceal the women beneath 
the flowing robe of the choristers. Next appears 
Giotto, the Eaffaelle of the earliest epoch of art, 
who divined color, animation, and life ; the man 
who executed the portrait of Dante, constructed the 
spire of the Florence Cathedral, for whom all the 
great signers of Italy, the Polentani of Eavenna, 
Malatesti of Eimmini, Este of Ferrara, Castruccio 
of Lucca, Yisconti of Milan, and Scala of Yerona, 
alternately contended, as a powerful auxiliary to 
their ambition and fortune. He also aspired to 
leave his trace in the Campo Santo. Giotto de- 
posited there not less than four pictures ; but, alas ! 
scarcely can a few fragments of these master-pieces 
be distinguished upon the devastated walls. One 
depicted the intoxication of Noah, and was spe- 
cially charming. The patriarch, slightly clad, 



PISA. 63 

succumbs to the first enchantments of inebriation : 



a young girl, at the aspect of the good man, shades 
her beauteous eyes with a trembling hand ; but 
the Curious^ through the fingers, risks a glance. 
She is called La Yergognosa^ and has originated a 
proverb. But how is it possible, in a circuit of 
half a league, to trace these -half-effaced works — 
all the prophets, the entire Bible, the gospel, the 
successive painters of the first three ages of paint- 
ing! As well might we number the dead that 
repose an instant beneath these cypresses ! 

The day is not the best time to visit this ceme- 
tery, which may be said to have been founded for 
a congress of kings ; the sacred ground where all 
the tombs are equal. You can indeed profit by 
the sun, to study, one after another, all these mar- 
bles, these numerous debris of antiquity, gathered 
here and there in the Pisan Eepublic, and which 
have themselves also found their place of repose, 
as if they had led the life of men. -Among the 
fragments which make this cemetery a museum, 
there are some very remarkable. Profit by the 
daylight to see them, and finally when night shall 
have come, when the moon shall pierce, with her 
calm ray, the last cloud — when the last English- 
man, with his importunate, fatiguing whistle shall 



54 PISA. 

have entered his hotel, then is the time for you 
to glide into the Oampo Santo of Pisa. Kight, 
which effaces all other monuments, fills this, on 
the contrary, with a thousand favorable gleams. 
The sombre verdure of the cypress is softened in 
that propitious reflection. The slender colonnades 
assume bolder outline in those dim vistas ; the old 
cloister is magnified by favor of that melancholy 
light, as the half- veiled moon capriciously projects 
her feeble rays over all these remains of olden 
times. — It is the sun of tombs ! 

Enter then within this funeral enclosure. The 
very gate is embellished with a sarcophagus ; not 
a place has been lost in this last asylum of the dead. 
The ingenious remains of G-recian, of Etruscan, 
of Italian art, at this hour of the night, show 
themselves tcf you as they left the hand of the 
workman. The mutilated marbles of the morning, 
the half-obliterated paintings of sunlight, the lim- 
pid Italian night restores to honor ; she completes, 
embellishes, magnifies, and renews; she gives to 
Time a formal lie ; she fills that solitude, reani- 
mates that silence. Tread softly, that the shades 
wandering around their monuments at this hour 
may take you for a phantom. On your right, 
move heroes and martyrs; on the left, flies afar 



PISA. 55 

the tapering arcade of the cloister timorously hur- 
rying into the obscurity, while you tread under- 
foot a thousand funeral inscriptions, broken hatch- 
ments, and half-effaced names, emblems which sig- 
nified in other times, '•'■Here repose youth and 
leauty P'' but which, at present, scarcely say, 
" Here reposes a dead hody^ aged four centuries /" 
A slow, solemn promenade, full of imposing appa- 
ritions ! A strange confusion of Pagan and Christ- 
ian monuments, but little astonished to find them- 
selves united in the same nothingness. Ancient 
Eome has deposited in this place her Hercules, 
her Juno, and her Yulcan ; Greece has left here 
her Yenus and her Loves; Egypt her Sphinx; 
and especially have they all emulously sent hither 
models of their tombs. And know you that, in 
more than one of these empty coffins, within these 
sarcophagi, surmounted with the Egyptian Ibis, 
or else wreathed with the myrtle of Yenus, or 
vine-branch of Bacchus, are couched, to rise no 
more till the judgment-day, the most fervent 
Christians of the Middle Ages ? All these urns of 
mythological dead have been filled a second time, 
but now it is the worshippers of Christ that 
occupy them. In a sarcophagus of white marble, 
which no doubt once belonged to some valiant 



56 PISA. 

Eoman soldier, reposes tlie great artist, Nicola; 
and beside his father, within a graceful amphora 
of the most beauteous Grecian style, worthy of his 
hand, lies Giovanni, his son, architect of the 
Campo Santo. Excellent example which these 
artists gave there to future generations, viz. that 
Antiquity was not designed to be inglorionsly mu- 
tilated and scattered to the winds, bnt, on the con- 
trary, that she was sacred and respectable in her 
decay, and that a Christian could rest calmly even 
within cof&ns consecrated by the priests of Jupiter. 
Thus, all these antique tombs seem to glide 
onward, while your melancholy glance seeks to 
divine to what men they have appertained a thou- 
sand years since ; to whom they belonged three 
centuries past. All these admirable receptacles 
of the dead !nay be said to have been con- 
structed for eternity; they are covered with 
images, emblems, humorous or terrible scenes, like 
the shield of Achilles in the Iliad. To complete 
them, they have placed, at hazard, other fragments 
of pillars, inscriptions, statues, or busts; foreign, 
both inscriptions and busts, to the monuments 
they complete. And yet, this has a great effect 
in the partial lunar light. Unable to imagine 
how a Greek statue should be mounted on a 



PISA. 67 

Eoman tomb, or the bust of a young man crown 
the sarcophagus of a young girl, you whisper that, 
doubtless, they were interrupted in their nocturnal 
vigil, and had remained pell-mell in the place 
where they found themselves, without having had 
time to reconnoitre their position. Meanwhile, 
proceed fearlessly ; admire, on the tomb of a Pisan 
soldier, these two beautiful images of Castor and 
Pollux ; remark, I pray you, on the sepulchre of 
a holy bishop, the dancing Grraces, and then invo- 
luntarily recall these verses of Horace : — 

Jam Cytherea choros ducit Venus, imminente liina, 
Juncta'que NympMs Gratiae decantes ! 

Further on, upon a pedestal where there is men- 
tion of Jacopo d'Appiano, of whose history I 
know nothing, is a bust of Junius Brutus, the 
founder of a republic extinct as is the republic of 
Pisa. Near to Brutus, two lions support an oval 
sarcophagus (a singular form to give a tomb); 
within this oval is enshrined the body of a Guelph 
of Pisa; while in another, not far distant, is con- 
tained that of a Pisan Ghibeline, surmounted with 
a light pillar, covered with the turban of Mo- 
hammed. 

Bien plus ! upon the broken frontispiece of a 



5S PISA. 

temple of Diana, stand side by side the apostles 
St. Peter and St. Paul. Tliej cast a severe regard 
on tlie sleeping Endymion. Some very modern 
marbles are mingled, I scarcely know by what 
rigbt, with these works of antiquity ; a tomb, for 
instance, sculptured by Thorswalden, that immo- 
derately extolled artist. It sufl&ces to compare 
that tomb by Thorswalden with the adjacent one 
of the sculptor Thomas of Pisa, executed by his 
pupils. But see 1 behold a strange thing 1 — beside 
Thomas, the believing artist, interred there by his 
pupils, see this great monument full of ostenta- 
tion ! Have you read aright the name this mar- 
ble bears? It is Algorotti! the Yenitian scoffer, 
so beloved by Frederick II., the Italian imitator of 
Yoltaire, the ordinary skeptic of his Majesty the 
King of Prussia, sepultured in holy ground — and 
by whom sepultured ? By the King of Prussia 
himself, who composed his inscription: AlgoroUo^ 
Ovidii cemulo, Fredoricus Magnus. " To Algorotti, 
the rival of Ovid ! Frederick the Great." 

There, too, among the dead of yesterday, is the 
fair Countess Schouvaloff, who died so young and 
beautiful twenty years since; she rests between 
two celebrated jurisconsults of the fourteenth cen- 
tury. And opposite, at the end of that long 



PISA. 59 

avenue of vacant or full coffins, who, then, has 
been bold enough to lie down in the admirable 
sarcophagus whereon a Grecian chisel has repre- 
sented all the Hyppolitus of Euripides! It may 
be pronounced even superior to the Phgedrus of 
Euripides. It may be said, from the elegance of 
these personages, the beauty of the lineaments, 
that the artist was inspired by the Ph^dros of 
Racine ! Who then, once more, is sleeping within 
this priceless marble, wrought, without doubt, for 
one of the conquerors of proud Troy ? It is a 
queen, that has confided to that urn her mortal 
remains. In this sarcophagus, Beatrice, mother 
to the Countess Mathilde, wished to repose. She 
sent to seek that Pagan urn in the temple of 
Bacchus, and sleeps within it, as does Clement 
XII. in the tomb of Agrippa. Such is the des- 
tiny of great art! 

Here, again, is the sarcophagus of a great, 
unknown sculptor, who awoke the genius of Ni- 
colo of Pisa. Upon this marble, one of the most 
elegant of antiquity, is represented a hunt of Hyp- 
politus, son of Theseus. And behold here the 
model by which Nicolo divined the style of 
antique statues. He learned thence how to place 
a figure, how to animate it — in a word, he disco- 



60 PISA. 

vered all the secrets of that unknown art which 
he was to communicate to so many others. Thus 
was it, that in reading some verses of Malherbe, 
La Fontaine felt the instinct of a poet. The beau- 
tiful pulpit which we just now admired in the 
Baptistry of Pisa, has no other origin than the 
borrowed tomb of the Countess Beatrice. Anno 
Domini 1116. 

The night passes swiftly in these solemn evo- 
cations. Meanwhile, you hear countless varied 
murmurs. The cypresses balance their dark fo- 
liage, the wind sighs beneath the Gothic arches, 
the sea roars in the distance ; and, in a side chapel, 
a burning lamp lights a pale and bloody Christ. 
The Saviour, full of sorrow and forgiveness, drags 
his cross along the Via Dolorosa. Without, at 
intervals, sings the nightingale of Juliet, come 
from Yerona to Pisa. Disturbed by this rummage 
among brambles, suddenly dart forth myriads of 
fire-flies — ethereal phosphorus; surely, they are 
the spirits of the dead! At the same time the 
moon, from the summit of the Leaning Tower, 
casts her vacillating beams upon the walls, and 
instantly there float around you the numberless 
Christian or profane images, escaped from the 
pencil of so many great masters ! It is the hour 



PISA. 61 

of universal resurrection! What awe, and what 
rapture ! How shall we, at the sight of so much 
genius and virtue buried there, refuse to believe 
that sentence of the Sovereign Pontiff who conse- 
crated the Campo Santo: Si quis in isto Gampo 
Santo sepultus fuerit^ vitam possideUt ceternum. 
" Whosoever shall be interred in this holy ground, 
will have eternal life." 



FLORENCE. 



CHAPTER I. 

Having now arrived witllin these noble walls, 
on the festal ground of Italy, in that unrivalled 
of Italian cities ; now, in fine, that we are at Flo- 
rence, let ns speak of her at onr ease, traverse 
slowly this vast museum of marvels and memo- 
rials, for, unlike all other towns absorbed about 
^the future, the past alone is her life, memory her 
hope. 

So much of life is compressed in her brief span 
of other days, that, at present, a repose of many 
ages is before her, so perfectly has she at once 
accomplished the successive destinies of towns; 
satiated herself, at one stroke, with liberty and 
bondage, victories and defeats, prosperity and 
misery. 

Singular town, which has served as an avenue 
to all the great ideas whereon the glory, pros- 
perity, and experience of modern history are 
founded ! Thus, after quitting the Campo Santo 



FLOEENCE. 63 

of Pisa, when I perceived in the distance this 
admirable resuscitated image of revolutions and 
tempests, what I had learned of Italy vanished 
from recollection; the great name of Florence 
sounded louder to my heart and soul than that of 
Eome herself, the Eternal City ! Eome, in effect, 
is the solemn tomb of the old Pagan universe, 
Florence, the ancient cradle of the new world at 
the instant when Christian Europe, awaking to 
the fine arts, begins to recognize by a smile Dante 
and Michael Angelo; as, for his mother, did the 
young Marcellus, Yirgil. 

Florence is the mother-land of all poetry and 
art which belong not to antiquity. Like Christo- 
pher Columbus, she is the discoverer of a new 
world, but not merely as the Grenoese, one of dia- 
monds, gold, slaves, and pearls, but a distinct world 
of intelligences, wandering promiscuously and in- 
definitely in the dust and night of the Middle 
Age. She was the first to utter the great cry 
which awoke Michael Angelo and Galileo, and to 
rend in twain, not the veil of the temple, but the 
otherwise thick darkness of barbarism. Listen! 
from that silent earth divine harmonies will issue! 
Behold, and before you will rise an entire city, 
sculptured, engraven, and painted by the most 



64 FLOEENCE. 

illustrious genius. On all those immense open 
gates, upon tlie useless ramparts, where may be 
doubly read tlie name of Michael Angelo as sol- 
dier and as architect, . interrogate history, and 
suddenly you will see arrayed before you that 
whole nation of turbulent, busy heroes; violent 
democrats, imbued with all the noble necessities 
of the greatest seigneurs ; dealers in gold, yet ex- 
pert in wielding a sword ; as ardent to foment a 
revolt as to build a chef-d'oeuvre; fearless Grhibel- 
lines, dauntless Guelphs, both one and the other 
covered with their t)wn blood; and, what a little 
absolves them from the blood they have spilled, 
founding, amid all these civil tumults, the same 
arts which the peaceable Athenians of Aspasia 
or of Pericles had, with so much labor, created. 
Such is that people, whom we may style the 
Etruscans of the Middle Age^ from whom, while 
living, emanated more new ideas, more lofty pas- 
sions, more great works of art, than have pro- 
duced, in similar space of time, all the combined 
nations of Christian Europe. It is impossible for 
me to describe the tumult of my thoughts in ap- 
proaching Florence. On the way, I had, with the 
impassioned interest of a neophyte, reperused the 
charming book of M. Delecluze, a most sincere 



FLORENCE. 65 

and learned writer ; and as his history is simply 
and ably written, full of facts, and moderate in 
style, I had it perfectly in memory. History is 
endowed with the special prerogative of rendering 
life, action, and passion to all the scattered ashes 
she has gathered in her powerful hand. She sows 
around her every kind of debris, and these, like 
the stones of Deucalion and Pyrrha, she quickly 
changes into as many moving, thinking men. 
But what infinite interest is added to the drama, 
when yon suddenly find yourself upon the very 
theatre where it was enacted! When you can 
exclaim, "Behold the battle-field ! — the tribune! — 
the prison ! — the throne ! — the altar! — the scaffold !" 
Apropos^ I had forgotten to relate that, in return- 
ing from the Campo Santo of Pisa, I passed the 
foot of the Tour de la Faim. At that moment, the 
moon was bloody; a mysterious funeral light was 
exhaled from these sombre walls; it seemed to 
me that I heard the sound of human teeth grind- 
ing within an empty skull! There is no written 
poetry which can express the effect of that tower. 
Morence! see Florence, then, before us! Ima- 
gine a stone palace, lightly placed on flowers, so 
that the flowers, without bending their heads, 
support that noble house; a museum within, a 
'6* 



M FLORENCE. 

fortress witlioiit. Slie has, in effect, been built on 
a field of lilies and roses, without stifling either 
the roses or lilies. She is sheltered, like a true, 
cajoling, coquettish Italian, between two hills, 
covered with olives, vineyards, and flowering 
pomegranates ; and she has, to admire her rather 
sunburnt beauty, the Arno, as proud, and not less 
elegant than the Parisian Seine. Seen afar off, 
you would exclaim, "La Grand Yillel" as you 
regard that array of imposing towers, sounding 
spires, glittering domes, and countless summits, 
the ornament of most great cities, in which Paris 
is so deficient. Thus, you penetrate through a 
long suite of houses, or rather citadels ; and now, 
more clearly than in the town of Genoa, are 
enabled to comprehend what constitutes a great 
architect. Here is no exterior decoration, no 
paintings, but stern walls apparently of granite, 
inviolable houses of one single black stone, rising 
aloft till lost in space. The roof projects into the 
street, the window is high and narrow, the door 
massive. Look upward, and behold these menacing 
battlements ! Upon the wall is still engraven the 
escutcheon of the master. At each of these win- 
dows there has been conflict ! From the top of 
these battlements have men been precipitated! 



FLORENCE. 67 

In these narrow streets have citizens clashed in 
combat ! Often have these walls been witnesses 
of bloody tragedies; and it is therefore that they 
were hewn out of the living rock, that they might 
not be demolished by blood. How many times 
have these ponderous doors opened for prison, 
death, or exile! At that day, the father of a 
family said not, " My domestic fireside !" — he said, 
"My domestic citadel!" These men lived with 
arms in their hands, and hatred in their hearts. 
For a republic, tell me not of those petty equalities 
which jostle in passing; they see each other too 
nearly not to discern all their misery and vanity. 
But if the Florentines had been contented to 
slay, pillage, and exile — to erect on either side 
fortress against fortress — in fine, to devour each 
other like furious wolves, where then were their 
history? They might have hunted these wild 
beasts, tracked them to their dens, accomplished 
their revenge at the same time upon the animal 
and his lair, and all would have been told. Hap- 
pily, the sentiment of a common liberty imposed 
silence on the Guelphs and Ghibellines in periods 
of danger, and then they united in the same perils. 
Afterwards, wearied with the monotonous aspect 
of their citadels, they conceived the design of 



68 FLORENCE. 

erecting public edifices, on which the harassed eye 
might turn for relief, to contemplate masterpieces 
of art which were the common property. It may 
be said to the glory of the ancient citizens of 
Florence, that they were less egotistical than the 
republicans of Genoa. They adorned not their 
private abodes, but their city. While the Genoese 
inhabited rich palaces in a town void of monu- 
ments, the Florentines occupied empty palaces in 
a city full of cliefs-d'oeuvfe. They knew that man 
passes away, and the town remains. They wil- 
lingly consented to demolish each other, but at no 
price would they efface from a public wall a name, 
an armorial ensign, were it the name even of a 
traitor, the insignia of a vanquished foe. 

This people, so immeasurably turbulent, paused 
suddenly to construct a public place where they 
could more conveniently indulge their animosities. 
The different corps of artisans, in the height of a 
general battle, agreed to a suspension of arms, in 
order to build a common church, whither each 
could bear his statue and his offering. Thus, 
while the houses of individuals paid the forfeit of 
these civil wars, the city was progressively embel- 
lished. To her alone beloaged the architects, 
painters, and sculptors of the Eepublic. These 



FLORENCE. 69 

men loved tlie arts for others as well as themselves; 
in this they were true philanthropists, and in the 
right, for, in good conscience, it cannot be admit- 
ted that one man should be so completely master 
of a picture of Eaffaele as to have the power to 
destroy, or even enjoy it alone. This the Floren- 
tines understood perfectly; and hence is it that 
this town, which has obliterated nothing of her 
art, is to-day so rich in monuments of every kind. 
What is there astonishing in the fact that we are 
so poor in this respect, who, at each revolution, 
have shivered in fragments temples, palaces, and 
even tombs; we, who regard it a necessity of our 
hatred or favor, to efface on the morrow the 
monuments of yesterday; we, who have carved 
four or five times, at the angles of the Louvre, the 
eagle, or the fleur-de-lis? At Florence, in the 
court of the Prison, I have seen entire, the num- 
berless escutcheons of the Podestats of the Ee- 
public. There, under the battlements of the Old 
Palace, glitter still nine escutcheons, which, in 
France, since 1298, would have been effaced at 
least one hundred thousand times. The Ghibelline 
escutcheon, a red lily on a white ground ; the 
Guelph, with the keys of the Holy See; the 
escutcheon of the Duke of Anjou, and that of the 



70 FLORENCE. 

King of Naples ; the emblazoned insignia of the 
Duke of Athens; the implements of the wool- 
carders; the six balls of the Medici; the ensigns 
of Kapoleon, and finally those of the Grand Dukes 
of the house of Austria. 

Among all these escutcheons of the ephemeral 
grandeur of the Florentine Eepublic, certainly the 
one which would have been expunged with the 
greatest frenzy among us Frenchmen and philoso- 
phers, is the monogram of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
named King of the Florentines in 1527. The 
Divine Saviour himself has the honor of his royal 
escutcheon between that of the Duke of Athens 
and the carders of wool. Accordingly, at one 
glance, you can embrace all that history which 
this people have respected as they have the monu- 
ments of their town. Intelligent nation ! the only 
one in the world which has taught the inviolate 
sanctity of history ; that the greatest popular fury 
should not efface a single line of its pages. I 
believe there is not, in any other people of the 
universe, the example of such moderation. 

Since, then, we are in the presence of the Old 
Palace, occupied in considering that eventful his- 
tory, let us pause an instant. The place is forti- 
fied and adorned, consisting of high walls, which 



FLORENCE. 71 

protect illustrious art. Michael Angelo is tliere 
seen beside tlie Medici, and not far from Eaffaele, 
wlio desired to bnild one of the houses of this site. 
Art and policy are mingled and confounded with- 
in this crowded inclosure. There, each marble 
has a sense, each pillar is a memorial. The Palace 
is at once a fortress, a royal abode, a chamber for 
orators, a field of combat for emeute^ a forum to 
make laws, and a museum. Her lofty, menacing 
walls are defended by a tower, from whose high 
belfry, in times of civil war, sounded the popular 
alarum. Every stroke of this terrible bell made 
those hearts, to-day so tranquil, vibrate with rage. 
At the foot of the tower still stands the stone lion, 
with a fleur-de-lis in his claws, the passive witness 
of the many revolutions of five hundred years ; 
while in front of the tower, and as if presenting 
to you the contest of two giants, rises the colossal 
David of Michael Angelo — naturally, it is the 
tower that is crushed by the statue. As a pend- 
ant to the David, there is the Hercules of Bandi- 
nelli, which might be supposed the exaggerated 
yet still grand brother of David. At the same 
time, the fountain of Ammonato casts its water 
into marble basins, supported by four brazen 
horses ; you would call it one of the Neptunes of 



72 FLOKENCE. 

the jets cPeau of Versailles. On the ground below, 
and still on the same side with the David, the illus- 
trious Orgagna reared these noble arcades, under- 
neath w^hich the people of Florence might repair, 
arms in hand, to discuss the interests of the 
Eepublic. The portico is said to be the most 
beautiful in the world. 

We Parisians, who know nothing beyond the 
arcades of the Palais Eoyal, and Eue de Kivoli, 
can conceive no idea of such a monument in the 
open air, free to all, and yet so complete, that a 
whole people assembled beneath them can say, 
"Je suis cliez onoir Architecture has seldom 
executed a grander work, for a simple promenade 
under these arcades excites an inexpressible sen- 
sation of comfort, scarcely to be encountered in 
the most splendid halls of Genoa. The Loggia, 
moreover, is adorned like the saloon of a prince. 
It was for the Lodge of Lancers that Donatello 
executed his Judith, that Griovanni of Bologna 
wrought his Eape of the Sabines, an admirable 
marble, redolent of brutal passion. It was to 
embellish the Loggia, that Benvenuto Cellini, the 
great artist in armor, a kind of bandit sculptor, 
who ornamented his poignard as if it were his 
mistress, created his Perseus, with what infinite 



FLORENCE. 73 

terrors, you have read in his memoirs. This chef- 
d'oeuvre of Bellini is accompanied by two has-reliefs^ 
in which you discover all the delicate chasing of 
the Florentine goldsmith. Remark, also, the has- 
reliefs of the Sabines of Giovanni of Bologna, and 
those of the statue of Cosmo. These Florentines 
were lavish of art, grand or minute ; they never 
knew when to pause in adorning their city, their 
sovereign, and well-beloved mistress. These little 
statuettes of half a foot lose nothing of their deli- 
cacy by the side of the colossal David, as neither 
do they take from their gigantic neighbor any of 
his grandeur. As I have just related, to complete 
the tout-ensemhle^ rises in the centre of this place 
the equestrian statue of Cosmo T. by Griovanni of 
Bologna. You must not weary of hearing the 
same great names repeated in enumerating the 
great works of one city. In those days, when 
she had recognized a great artist, the town aban- 
doned herself to him, body and soul, and he passed 
his life in embellishing her. Giovanni of Bologna 
and Michael Angelo have done for Florence, what 
Nicola and his son Giovanni did for Pisa — not 
only have they made her beautiful, but likewise 
grand and rich. Let steel clash against steel, 
when the glory and durability of towns is the 
7 



74 FLOEENCE. 

stake; but better, infinitely, the chisel of the 
sculptor than the sword of the conqueror. 

If this place appear to jou unequal, the Tri- 
bune to be isolated from the Palace, the Loggia 
too disconnected from the whole; that the sta- 
tuettes, detached from each other, need a link to 
•unite them in a group; that, in fine, the arrange- 
ment, altogether, remains unfinished; know, that 
such was the will of the people, averse to building 
their Tribune on the site of two houses which 
they had razed. It is the first, and perhaps the 
only time, that Florence has not sacrificed her 
political animosity to the desire of embellishment. 

Notwithstanding all -its apparent disorder, this 
place of the Grand Duke attracts and fascinates 
you irresistibly. You pass from one statue to 
another, gaze on them at a distance, approach the 
bas-reliefs J linger by the Tribune, traverse the Log- 
gia, and admire the motionless escutcheons below 
the battlements. What would you not give, at 
that instant, to see this strange town, animated, 
as in her best days, with violent passions, mighty 
wrath, heroic animosities! The republic, the oli- 
garchy, the Florentine monarchy, still live upon 
these walls. Examine, and you will discover the 
traces of their passage ; blows of the sword, thrusts 



FLOKENCE. 76 

of the poignard; sonorous words and imperious 
eloquence ; vociferation of tlie populace ; abase- 
ment of the nobles ; abasement of the people, and 
their alternate grandeur ; a town so illustrious in 
her passions, that Charlemagne wished to rebuild 
it, somewhat upon the model of ancient Eome, 
and which had merited that honor by her revolu- 
tions, intelligence, and genius. Scarcely had she 
assumed the appellation of Florence, ere the 
Countess Mathilde gave her to the Pope; and she 
entered into the cruel wars of Guelphs and Ghibel- 
lines, which have produced for us St. Bartholo- 
mew and Queen Catherine of Medici. Florence 
augmented amid her disorders, became powerful 
through civil war. The more these republicans 
massacred each other, the more superb and strong 
they grew. It is the history of the men born of 
the serpent of Cadmus. Kever have such dis- 
orders been manifest in any history, followed by 
such results. The Florentines commenced, as did 
the Eomans, by brigandage ; they burned Fiesole, 
which overshadowed them, and converted that 
important town into suburban villas. They erect- 
ed towers before building houses of abode. Con- 
trarily to all other nations of the world, they 
commenced with the palace and ended with the 



76 FLOEENCE. 

cottage. They were mercliants previous to being 
soldiers; then thej became artists; and, finally, 
fought as men who had never constructed a tem- 
ple, nor executed a picture. They have been 
wool-carding sovereign princes; they have been 
exchanging, scabbard-making, goldsmith-nobles ; 
they have made and attempted everything ; they 
have succeeded in all, saving in making laws; 
and that ignorance of laws, which would have 
ruined any other nation, has served this. We are 
confounded with admiration when we think that 
from this republic, lost in the labyrinth of Italian 
republics, have emanated all the arts, sciences, and 
ideas upon which modern Europe has lived, and 
still subsists. "We would fain prostrate ourselves 
before that land of poetry, of policy, history, 
science, of the fine-arts, and, with clasped hands, 
thank her for so many benefits ! Nay, further- 
more, not only has she given impulse to the 
modern, but saved, as far as practicable, the 
ancient world. Courageous and devoted, and 
already skeptical in her Christianity (skepticism is 
the legitimate offspring of civil wars), she first 
dared to proclaim that the ruins of the Pagan uni- 
verse were holy and respectable; and she has 
searched among these noble debris with incom- 



FLORENCE. 77 

parable vigilance and admiration. While "Venice 
transported painting from Constantinople, while 
Pisa brought architecture from Syria, Florence 
ascended far higher than Constantinople, without 
losing herself in that bastard art of the more re- 
mote East. Florence ascended to Eome, and from 
Eome to Athens. And what a solemn instant 
was that, when, in the height of her studies, after 
so many, such abrupt changes — after having sub- 
mitted to the alternate yoke of Emperor and 
Pope, of noble and citizen, she reposed in her 
riches and in her liberty — she heard the accents 
of that expressive voice, vox clamaiitis^ when she 
heard the voice of Dante revealing to her at once 
the past, the present, and the future ! 

Thus, then, this town belongs to antiquity by 
her studies, to modern times by her discoveries. 
She reaches with one hand to Phidias, with the 
other to Michael Angelo. She is the daughter of 
Dante and of Homer. She has had faith, at the 
same hour, in Jupiter and in the God of the Gos- 
pel. She has discovered the Yenus buried in the 
earth, the very day that Petrarch found the Italian 
language hidden in the Divina Gommedia. She 
has, by the space of three hundred years, preceded, 
in the culture of the fine arts, all other nations of 



78 FLORENCE. 

the west and north, whose eyes remained closed 
to that great light. Pre-eminent among modern 
people, she has been eloquent, impassioned, poetic, 
elegant, amorous, gorgeous. She has worn' the 
first robe of silk, the first mantle of velvet, the 
first chiselled armor. She has been the queen of 
the world ; a queen, in her magnificence, her 
grace, her language, her youth, and her beauty. 

But we have, meanwhile, left the Old Palace at 
a distance ! The architect, Arnolpho di Lapo, a 
pupil of Nicola of Pisa, gave the first projet of this 
covered forum. It is the oldest republican monu- 
ment of Florence, and yet nothing is wanting, 
neither pictures, statues, nor ceilings. The monk 
Savonarola, that Junius Brutus under a frock, 
presided in person at the construction of its vast 
circumference, which could contain ten thousand 
calm desperadoes. The walls were scarcely raised 
ere covered with pictures in honor of Florence; 
one of these recalls the following fact, which is 
little surprising in the town of Machiavelli. Of 
twelve ambassadors, sent from various parts of 
Europe to Boniface YIL, two were Florentines. 
Among the statues are pre-eminent the Adam and 
Eve of Bandinelli, and the Victory of Michael 
Angelo. Singular republicans, who could not 



FLORENCE. 79 

deliberate on afifairs of state but in presence of 
chefs-d'oeuvre worthy of kings ! 

In this hall, to-day silent and empty, what revo- 
lutions, what emeutes^ what animosities have origi- 
nated ! Victors and vanquished, Ghibellines and 
Guelphs, judges, executioners, victims, citizens, 
merchants, bankers, and soldiers, have all arrived 
in this chamber, urged by the passions of the 
hour, and indulged in random strife, without re- 
straint, law, or motive ! There, nobles and demo- 
crats looked each other in the face, and emulously 
retorted words of hatred and injury. Then, in 
the next moment, and without apparent reasons, 
they passed from enmity to love, from rage to joy; 
and now succeeded endless fetes, private and pub- 
lic rejoicings, hymns, processions, spectacles, and 
bonfires ! These furious men of yesterday, on the 
morrow traversed the town crowned with flowers ; 
at their head, a chief called Amour. They sum- 
moned, from all parts of Europe, dancers, mounte- 
banks, Bohemians, and cooks. They cast their 
money in the streets, as if it had been only their 
blood. Such was Florence of the thirteenth cen- 
tury — a sanguinary, joyous fanatic, wearing alike 
the broidered mantle and the poignard ; thus pre- 



80 FLOKENCE. 

paring in advance every kind of cruelty and of 
license for embryo pestilence. 

Into this hall, where we now are, have passed 
successively the Duke of Athens and "Walter of 
Brienne, a sort of intriguer, become, we know not 
how. King of Florence. When he had been 
banished, then began to appear the Medici, the 
legitimate usurpers of Florence ; and at the very 
time when she said to the noble whom she ap- 
proved, "I make thee one of the people!" — reserv- 
ing, however, the power of remaking him noble, 
if he should displease her. Observe further, I pray 
you, that their monarchy commenced with a re- 
publican, Sylvester of Medici. To him succeeded 
the wool-carder, Lando, a man of genius and 
courage, sprung from the lowest ranks of the 
people. Moreover, it was the era of popular enfran- 
chisement throughout the world, the auspicious or 
fatal hour of William Tell and Arteveld, of Nicola 
Eienzi, and of Marino Faliero ; the period of Ja- 
querie in France, of the revolt of Ciompi (comrades) 
in Florence, the insurrection of Wat Tyler and 
Jack-straw in England. 

Here ends the history of the Old Palace. When 
the Medici manifested themselves, the Eepublic 
no more inhabited its halls ; and this, which had 



FLORENCE, 81 

been tlie palace of the people, is now only the 
palace of the Medici. This family had, by nature, 
an indescribable thirst for domination and mag- 
nificence, which a throne alone could satisfy. It 
seems to me rendering undue honor to award 
them the first place in the civilization of Florence. 
It is to Dante that pre-eminence is due, and next 
to him Galileo ; the Medici come after these. They 
have had the honor of founding the Museum of 
Florence, but they have given her nothing else. 
Trace their history, and you will see what good 
fortune can accomplish when it attaches to great 
families. One elevates himself by commerce, and 
becomes master of a people, because he had been 
a skilful speculator. Another, after having been 
a proscriber, as implacable as Sylla, receives the 
noblest of surnames, The Father of Ms Country/ 
This one is borne in triumph for having escaped 
the assassin's steel ; that, for having passionately 
loved painting, sculpture, poetry, and all the fine 
arts, marches at the head of gentlemen of civilized 
Europe. So propitious was fortune to them, that 
exile, or if not exile, murder, always occurred in 
season to repair the tottering fabric of their popu- 
larity. They flourished under the very blows 
which should have crushed them. You know the 



82 FLOEENCE. 

history of Savonarola, the repubh'can of the ancient 
Tarpeian Kock, when he undertook to launch an 
anathema upon these elegant, sjpirituel usurpers 
of liberty. He was the first who attempted resist- 
ance to a despotism surrounded with such seduc- 
tions. The monk maintained a bold front against 
the prince. He attacked the Medici in all the 
passions which rendered them popular, breaking 
in pieces the splendid works of marble and bronze, 
rending the silk and velvet, and heaping, in one 
republican funeral-pile, the armorial ensigns, sculp- 
ture, books of poets, and all that royal ornament 
wherewith Le Magnifique had surcharged Flo- 
rence. Eh hien! the Magnifique was speedily 
avenged of the monk ! Florence, like a courtezan 
whose repentance is fugitive as her virtue, soon 
relapsed into'the vice she loved. She burned her 
monk as she had burned her veils and laces, and 
returned to the prince who had decked her so 
richly. Then it is that appears in the background 
the prudent Machiavelli, the man who is, in a 
different way, as great an inventor as Galileo. 
Machiavelli is the discoverer, not of policy, but 
of diplomacy, its indispensable modern comple- 
ment. Of pliant, flexible genius, he was the first 
to express, in formula, a sad truth, which time has 



FLORENCE. 83 

but too fully demonstrated, the inutility of good 
faith and probity among the divers estates of 
Europe. He carried prudence even within the 
bounds of treason, and found a solution for all the 
crimes of his time, even for those of the Borgia. 
He was endowed with every species of courage, 
down to the least dif&cult of all in those barbarous 
days, that of submitting to torture without com- 
plaint, as to a cruel necessity. 

No, seek not the Medici in the Old Palace, 
neither on the Public Place; seek them in their 
museum, in their royal abodes, in their tombs; 
especially seek them at the court of Eome, when 
Leo X. and Clement YII., those first-crowned 
Medici, compelled Florence to bow to their gor- 
geous protection. 

In a word, and as the most honorable decision 
to this question, Florence has but one master, a 
single founder and legitimate king — Dante Ali- 
ghieri ! 



84 FLORENCE, 



CHAPTER II. 

DAKTE — THE CATHEDRAL — THE LIBRARY — 
THE GALLERY. 

Yes, it is Dante, wTio is sovereign master of 
Florence, and of that grand epocL. of human ge- 
nius called the Renaissance. At his voice, awoke 
modern Italy, as did ancient Greece at the voice 
of Homer and Pythagoras. He, like them, cele- 
brated country and creed, gods and heroes; he, 
too, was the creator of the language he has spoken. 
This knowledge was boundless in scope; he under- 
stood theology like Savonarola, policy as well as 
Machiavelli ; he had read Aristotle and Plato ; he 
was painter, musician, orator, and soldier — in a 
word, he was a poet of the stature of Homer. He 
commenced by endowing his country with a lan- 
guage, the noblest gift man can make to his fel- 
lows. And after a lapse of five hundred years 
the poesy of Dante yet lives ! Por five hundred 
years, every generation that has passed over that 
land has known by heart the poem, conceived 



FLORENCE. 85 

amid blood, carnage, incendiarism, all the furious 
passions of civil war, and written in exile. In 
this poem, the depository of his mind, heart, and 
soul, Dante founded, unconsciously, that great 
Florentine school which has no equal under the 
sun. He revealed to his age manners, letters, 
science, and the fine arts. So profoundly did he 
stir that nation of republicans, that suddenly, by 
incredible effort, they emerged from the barbarism 
and darkness of the thirteenth century. His book 
was the first and the last word of that history. 
He originated the language of religion, of morals, 
of policy, and of satire. He who dug so terrible 
a hell, the only one to be feared, drew from that 
Christian "Inferno" Homer, Horace, Ovid, Lucan 
the victim of ISTero, Eneas the hero of Virgil, and 
Caesar, whom he has replaced in the heaven of 
Yirgil, and beside Caesar, Brutus; thus giving, 
with all his powers, a contradiction to the gospel, 
which had damned all these great men of an- 
tiquity. 

Dante has then rescued from eternal fire the 
soul of the Pagan world, as Leo X., in later times, 
saved, as far as he could, its material ruins — a 
double resurrection; but that of Dante was the 
most courageous. Let us, however, award to 



86 FLORENCE. 

Dante and Leo X. the double honor of that renais- 
sance. Both have said to Pagan Lazarus, Arise^ 
and walk! Each has had his part of this benefit. 
Dante appropriated, for his share, the soul of the 
resuscitated dead ; the Medici have preserved for 
theirs, the marble and sculpture of his tomb. 

This man, fallen from heaven into Mediaeval 
Italy, cast the vivid light of his poetry over all 
these accumulated ruins. He first indicated to the 
dazzled Italia'ns to what admirable purposes these 
decaying fragments might be rendered subservient 
— the historians, poets, artists, and monuments of 
antiquity — precious relics, scattered here and there 
at random, in the horrible rubbish of incendiarism 
and shipwreck. And from' such a lamentable 
aspect, Dante drew this following powerful con- 
clusion : " thit it was not necessary to reconstruct 
antiquity, but to invent something which might 
be antiquity in its turn." Dante, the theologian, 
knew too well that he could not reanimate the dust 
of extinct creeds as he would "upraise the pillar 
of a broken temple ; therefore said he to his age, 
"let us, in turn, be poets, architects, historians, 
philosophers, and sculptors! Let us be ances- 
tors! Let us arrange, for our convenience, what 
may serve us in the ancient poetic world ; but, far 



FLORENCE. 87 

from obeying tliese ruins, let us force tliem to 
obey us I" 

You have already seen tlie influence of this 
man in the monuments of Pisa, whose greatest 
artists he inspired ; nor is it less manifest in those 
of Florence. Dante, in effect, is, at the distance 
of three centuries, the father of Michael Angelo, 
who, at the end of that interval, had the honor to 
close the epoch of Renaissance^ which Dante, his 
master, had opened. And here, again, what a 
man do we present ! While yet a child, Poliziano 
had taught him to read the Divina Commedia^ all 
whose doctrines he had adopted, till he saw no- 
thing in all Florence but Dante. A sincere repub- 
lican, a faithful Christian, with slow and calm 
imagination, bold and lively execution, he lived 
alone, with no family save his pupils, no mistress 
but his Florence. In that crowd of traffickers, 
manufacturers, and exchangers, Michael Angelo 
loved and esteemed only artists. He jostled this 
people of merchants without seeing them. He 
would have deemed it beneath his dignity to 
honor them with his contempt. Even to the close 
of his ninety fruitful years, Michael Angelo was 
the slave of Dante ; he, whom the inflexible Pope, 
Julius II., had such difficulty in subduing! He 



88 FLORENCE. 

resisted at once the Medici and Ariosto. A re- 
publican as liad been Dante his master, "he bore 
to corrupt and corrupting Eome, not only the 
design of the dome of St. Peter's, and the frescoes 
of the Sistine Chapel, but also the austere manners 
and liberty of antique Florence. He too, Michael 
Angelo, has executed his " Inferno," and still fol- 
lowing the example of his master, placed therein 
the vicious and the guilty ; that is, the licentious, 
bloody friends of Paul III. After having trans- 
ferred the poetry of Dante to stone, and carved it 
in marble, he wrought the philosophy of the mas- 
ter into the verses which he wrote in his declining 
years — the admirable old man! In that closing 
hour, all illusion dissipated — even that of glory — 
he weeps for himself and for Florence. What 
alone consoled and reassured him, was the pure, 
chaste worship he had vowed to beauty in art, for 
Michael Angelo too had his unknown, adored 
Beatrice, who led him to heaven by paths sown 
with stars. 

Kemain united, then, in the respect of nations 
and admiration of the world, ye masters of the 
most brilliant epoch of human genius — thou Dante, 
who didst commence, and thou Michael Angelo, 
who hast completed it! 



FLORENCE. 89 

The toAvn of Florence is, then, divided between 
two perfectly distinct architects, Dante, and the 
house of Medici; the old crenellated stones of the 
Eepublic, and the more elegant ones of the Mo- 
narchy. Under inspiration of the poet, have 
arisen all the great architects, all the great monu- 
ments of the town. Under the protection of the 
Kings of Florence, have flourished all the marvel- 
lous talents which have covered this beautiful 
city with such, varied ornament. Not far from 
the Dome, is the site of a bench on which Dante 
was accustomed to sit, from whence he could see 
gradually rising that church Del Fiore, which has 
engendered St. Peter's of Eome, as it was itself 
engendered by Delia Spina at Pisa. It is admira- 
ble to observe how all these gigantic edifices are 
attached by one invisible link. At Pisa, on the 
borders of the Arno, the architect Mcola, as if in 
sport, has wrought in stone the most ingenious 
little cathedral possible. It is an exquisite master- 
piece of miniature-gothic. Upon these airy walls, 
he prof usely ■ cast all the caprices of his genius, 
and employed this elegant sketch in teaching his 
two sons, Andrea and Giovanni, how to wield the 
chisel of their father. You would imagine that 
you might take the beautiful edifice in your right 
8'^ 



90 FLORENCE. 

hand and bear it into your domestic museum. 
Well, it only requires to see tlie Duomo of Flo- 
rence to comprehend that the architect, Arnolpho 
di Lapo, wished to execute the outline of Mcola 
on a grand scale. He, too, desired to accumulate 
miracle upon miracle, but in an immense space. 
This place of the Duomo, whither the poet came 
every evening to rest from the meditations of the 
day, is as richly embellished with monuments as 
that of Pisa. It has its Baptistry, its Dome, and 
its Tower. It possesses no Campo Santo. The 
Campo Santo of Florence you may find scat- 
tered here and there in the cloisters, churches, and 
public places. You strike every instant against 
a glory — nay, against the dead ! 

The Baptistry of Florence is a monument of 
the Middle Age, perfectly resplendent with the 
youthful adornment of the Renaissance! It has 
three bronze gates, each a masterpiece; the first 
of which was sculptured by Andrea, son of Nicola, 
baptized into the kingdom of his father. After 
him, and at a much later period, the town and 
commune of Florence resolved to add two gates 
to the Baptistry, and, after a competition of a 
year's duration, they were confided to Lorenzo 
Ghiberti ; the Gates of Pa/radise^ as Michael An- 



FLORENCE. 91 

gelo styled them a hundred years from their con- 
struction. Upon that illustrious bronze, the artist 
expended forty years of his life. He reproduced, 
with singularly calm energy, the complete history 
of the Old Testament; and in the framework 
thereof, he has placed the portrait of his father, 
and his own. Kothing can be more charming, or 
delicately wrought than the bronze on which is 
represented all that simple, artless drama. Eve 
comes into the world borne by angels! Moses 
receives the tables of the law; Joshua crosses the 
Jordan. On the other door, the life of Jesus 
Christ commences. Among the miracles of the 
Saviour, you will observe the Lazarus, imitated 
by Eaffaelle. Imagine him, the handsome young 
man of eighteen years, standing before that speak- 
ing bronze, and studying so lovingly the compo- 
sitions of Ghiberti ! 

But, meanwhile, the Cathedral is before you — 
not immovable, but, on the contrary, floating in 
the azure of the blue sky reflected in its marbles. 
You are, at first, dazzled by the unexpected appa- 
rition. The inspiration of Dante has never pro- 
duced a grander work. The complete Renaissance 
illumines these walls. Now, Gothic art is forever 
surpassed, Byzantium is vanquished, the East is 



92 FLOEENCE. 

put to flight, and the new work is accomplished. 
I can well believe that Dante would often go to 
seat himself in this place, where he could success- 
fully realize all his dreams. The first architect 

of the Duomo was who could he be? 

Arnolfo di Lapo, then Giotto, then Orgagna, and 
finally, Brunellesco; the latter had to contend 
against the antique Pantheon, against the Cupola 
of St. Sophia at Constantinople ; and later, he had 
the honor of being vanquished in turn by the 
Cupola of St, Peter's at Eome, borne aloft by a 
son of Florence. 

How shall we describe the Duomo, and tell you 
aught that has not been repeated a thousand 
times ? How shall we find adequate language for 
the reality in portraying it to those who have seen 
it, or probable terms for such as have not yet 
admired it? It is less a temple than a town. 
The wall is covered with blue and white marble 
in perfect symmetry, and loaded with statues, has- 
reliefs^ and mosaics. Instantly on entering the 
vast interior, you are astonished to find it as grand 
within as without. The light falls from above, 
colored by the windows, refracted by the pillars, 
darting capriciously from the eternal mosaic, which 
extends afar beneath the arches, like green moss 



FLORENCE. 93 

in a forest of secular oaks. Throughout and 
around you, reigns silence devoid of terror or con- 
fusion. You realize that, even in this fresh twi- 
light, the sun and his ardent rays are immediately 
above your head. In this populous desert, you 
experience none of the inquietudes that possess 
the soul in the churches of the north ; for, under- 
neath these vaults, softly respire Faith, Hope, and 
Charity. Besides, the inhabitants of these soli- 
tudes are lying everywhere about you, at your 
feet, on your right and on your left, wrapped in 
their marble shrouds. There, at the foot of his 
finished work, sleeps Brunellesco, the first occupant ; 
by his side reposes Giotto, the exquisite, immortal 
architect of the Campanile, whose epitaph Ango 
Polizianos himself, the elegant Latinist, composed. 
There are also, under the Duomo, poets, orators, 
and soldiers promiscuously mingled. Orgagna 
has represented Pietro Farnese riding a mule, 
wherein he is as bold as Bossuet when he presents 
the brave Count de Fontaine porte dans la chaise. 
There, too, is Poggio, the licentious jester. On 
the side nave, is represented the stern image of 
Dante in scarlet robe, walking in ancient Florence. 
The cupola is embellished with gigantic paintings; 
the choir is entirely of marble, and composed of 



94 FLOKENCE. 

has-reliefs of Bandinelli, the author of the Sabines ; 
the high-altar is surmounted by a statue of Piety^ 
that Michael Angelo had executed for his own 
tomb. From the Dome is suspended the Meri- 
dienne whose model was given by Paulo Tosca- 
nelli, the privy councillor of Christopher Colum- 
bus. On the doors of the sacristy, glitters the 
genius of Luc della Eabbia, the Florentine Ber- 
nard de Palissy. Behind this door did Lorenzo 
of Medici take refuge, when the Pazzi would have 
assassinated him. Poliziano, the friend of Lorenzo, 
was arrested sword in hand upon this bloody 
threshold. It is altogether so grand and so vast, 
so resplendent and sombre — there are so many 
hidden depths within this holy place, man is so 
small at the foot of these ancient pillars, so insig- 
nificant beneath this dome raised by mortal hands, 
that there is but one impulse — to kneel and pray 
to God — the God of Dante and Michael Angelo! 
Between the Cathedral and the Baptistry of Flo- 
rence, Giotto has erected the Campanile, an ad- 
mirable square tower of the finest German Gothic 
style. As much as the Tower of Pisa inclines, 
does that of Florence stand firm, erect, neat, and 
slender; no contrast can be more expressive. 
Grace, airy elegance, ornament, or simplicity of 



FLORENCE. 95 

carved stone, lias never been more perfect. You 
involuntarily smile on beholding this charming 
little chef-d^oeuvre placed there between these two 
grave monuments, as a pretty blonde, rosy infant 
between two venerable sages. The effect of the 
Campanile surpasses description. Charles Y. na- 
turally wished it to be put under glass ; and, in 
effect, it seems as if the shade had been broken 
the evening before. To obtain a good view of the 
Campanile, place yourself opposite the street on 
whose end it stands; then, from this distance, 
advance slowly from behind the houses which 
conceal it, and you will see the light, delicate wall 
rising, chanting the Angelus. 

Beautiful as the Campanile^ is a Florentine pro- 
verb. The most excellent artists of Florence were 
eagerly emulous to adorn it. Donatello executed 
six statues for the Campanile, and Andrea, of 
Pisa, carved las-reliefs for it, with Luc della Kab- 
bia and Griotto. The latter is to be found every- 
where, like Michael Angelo; he is at the Campo 
Santo as the restorer of painting ; at the Cathe- 
dral, as master of Brunellesco. It is Giotto who 
alone erected the Campanile; for it he executed 
las-reliefs ; he wrought at the gates of the Bap- 
tistry ; in fine, he accomplished, unaided, the work 



96 FLOKENCE. 

of tliree men, each of whom would have required 
great genius for the performance of his part. And 
think, too, that all these excellent artists, whose 
names cannot be pronounced without respect 
mingled with admiration, amidst these incredible 
labors, went forth every morning to purchase their 
daily provisions in the market, and that it was 
one of their favorite customs to prepare their own 
repasts ! 

Well, beyond all doubt, all these great masters 
are pupils of Dante. They have obeyed only the 
inspiration of their poet ; they have wrought but 
for him and the Eepublic; they have never known 
nor acknowledged the Medici. The thought of 
Dante has presided at the erection of all the great 
monuments of Florence ; it has stirred the heart 
of all her illustrious men. Not only is he the 
father of Brunellesco, the inspirer of Arnolfo and 
Giotto, the master of Michael Angelo, he is more- 
over the inspirer of Petrarch, whom he taught, by 
his example, to love antiquity, and study it with- 
out servile imitation. In the school of his master, 
Petrarch became not merely a poet, but a scholar. 
His father was the friend of Dante, and, like him, 
a proscribed Ghibelline. He was the first master 
of his son in the town of Pisa, which had given 



FLORENCE. 97 

them hospitality ; from thence they went to seek, 
at Avignon, the fugitive Papacy. It was the 
solemn advent into the world of the fair Laura, 
when were heard the first songs of troubadours. 
Like Dante, he commenced to write his verses in 
the language of Yirgil and Horace, for these Ita- 
lians were still Eomans in mind and heart. Pe- 
trarch then abandons the Eomans to return to 
Florence. He had studied, in their minutest de- 
tails, the manners, usages, laws, and classic lore of 
the Eoman nation. Petrarch lived for three pas- 
sions only, which constituted his existence, science, 
travel, and love. As Dante had invoked Beatrice, 
so had he invoked Laura. Along with Petrarch 
arrives Boccaccio, the scoffer, sensualist, and amo- 
rous story-teller. Such are the works, such the 
men of Dante. Thanks to this poet, Florence 
ranks as the equal of Athens. Erase Dante from 
her history, take from the Eepublic this animating 
inspiration, and Florence is no more than the 
ephemeral rival of Carthage and of Tjve ! 

But in proclaiming the superiority of that 
mighty intellect, we are far from denying the in- 
fluence of the Medici. They skilfully followed in 
the train of all the illustrious men and great ideas 
which the Florentine poet had cast along his route- 
9 



98 FLORENCE. 

They wonderfully seconded" the passion for tlie 
arts whicli Florence had by instinct, and that 
love of antiquity wherewith poets had inspired 
her. What a history to write, the history of these 
merchants who gave their name to an age, as had 
Pericles, as Louis XIY. was destined to do I And 
how fruitful is that history in alternate glory and 
defeat, in prosperity and misfortune! To narrate 
it properly, we should ascend as far as possible in 
the history of Italy. In the beginning, the trem- 
bling cities were absorbed in devising means of 
protection against the invasions of barbarians; then, 
gradually, necessity, the vicinity of the sea, and 
that passion for the unknown which incites natibns 
as well as men, urges them to the very gates of 
Alexandria and Constantinople. Now behold our 
Italians enriched by commerce, and, with riches, 
imbibing an ardent desire of liberty. 

At the head of these new movements of com- 
merce and liberty, were the Lombards, naturally 
occupying that position by their intelligence and 
courage. Soon these scattered republics consti- 
tuted themselves into communities of wealth, pro- 
perty, and commercial enterprise. And while 
towns were thus being established, for whom was 
in store the destiny of empires, great men were 



FLORENCE. 99 

arising to found, at tlie will of tlieir genius, liberty 
or slavery, enlightened liberty or dark bondage. 
The Sforzi, the Bentivoglii, Pics of Mirandola, the 
Palentini, the Manfredi — these kings and gods, 
tyrants or saviours, whose names still live at Mi- 
lan, Bologna, Vienna, and Eavenna — generous 
men, enlightened intellects, covetous of every spe- 
cies of renown, whose very vices had something 
poetic. 

Among these illustrious families, the glory of 
modern Italy, in the first rank shone resplendently 
that of the Medici, masters of Florence. After 
long effort to obtain it, they finally died upon the 
throne which their noiseless ambition had reared. 
The first sovereign of that race of crowned mer- 
chants, Cosmo L, attained to power just as Italian 
genius emitted its supreme eclat. Happy in pub- 
lic affairs, this prince was unfortunate in his 
family. His daughter Maria was seduced by a 
page, and died of poison ; his second, the beautiful 
Duchess of Ferrara, was assassinated by her hus- 
band ; his son, Griovanni of Medici, the Cardinal, 
was poignarded by his brother, because of a roe- 
buck for which they disputed — while on his side, 
the miserable father, to avenge the murder, kills 
the survivor with the sword ; and then, too happy 



100 FLORENCE. 

was he, surronnded by these dead bodies, to relin- 
quisli the infant empire to his remaining son 
Francis. You know how this Cosmo T. perished. 
He was the lover of that celebrated Bianca Capel- 
la, whose history filled all Italy. She was a sin- 
gular woman, of great beauty, and boundless 
ambition, who reached the throne by means of 
the prevailing disorders. Abducted from the 
paternal house by a young adventurer of Yenice, 
she had taken refuge with her lover at Florence ; 
but the fair Yenitian was not so well concealed 
that the old Cosmo I., a prey to ennui and trou- 
bles, could not discover her. She had the grace 
of a Yenitian, the animated classic fairness, the 
sweet accent, the frivolous mind, and changing 
heart of a Yjenitian. She sees this old prince, 
alone, and almost a widower, fascinated by her ; 
and, though loving him not, she permits him to 
love her. Thus, she becomes mistress of Florence 
and its prince ! Then, one day, as the lover with 
whom she had eloped wearied her, she had him 
murdered, and her prince being, by this time, 
wholly a widower, she wholly espouses him. Ac- 
cordingly, great was the joy of Yenice to see one 
of her daughters ascend the throne of Florence. 
La Serenissima Eepublic, on this event, wished to 



FLORENCE. 101 

adopt as lier own tliat fair and illustrious fugitive, 
she sends, with extreme pomp, a deputation of 
her noblest and richest to represent her at this 
marriage, which cost Venice eight hundred thou- 
sand ducats. Kow, behold Bianca a sovereign, 
but without posterit}^. What vows did she not 
make to all the saints of Florentine Paradise for 
an infant to reign after his father! But the fatal 
hour had struck; and moreover she had behind 
her a terrible spy, Cardinal Don Francis, the bro- 
ther of Cosmo. One day that the Grrand Duchess 
made a semblance d\iccoucher^ Don Francis walked 
up and down reading his breviary, and behold 
wherefore the Duchess failed in being the mother 
of a stout boy ! 

She next resolves to be avenged, and endeavors 
to poison Don Francis. Offering him a certain 
dish of which he was fond, he refuses it, which his 
brother Cosmo observing, "By heaven!" exclaims 
the Duke, "then I will taste it," presenting his 
plate at the same time; and Bianca, to avoid con- 
fessing her crime, poisons both her husband and 
herself This horrible denouement to so agitated 
a career transpired in one of the beautiful villas 
that surround Florence; but the verdure, flowers, 
9'^ 



102 FLORENCE. 

and time, have obliterated these dreadful recollec- 
tions. 

And now remark in what an age appropriately 
appeared the great masters of painting, Titian 
(1477), Leonardo da Yinci(1520), Eaffaelle (1519), 
Corregio (1534), Michael Angelo (1563). It was 
the reign of Tintoret, of Paul Veronese, of Giulio 
Romano, and of the elegant Andrea del Sarto, the 
honor of Florentine art. 

It was, moreover, the auspicious epoch of Italy ; 
peace and the arts were at work ; and the inge- 
nious Italians, governed by their natural princes, 
freely abandoned themselves to the double impe- 
tus. At the head of this progressive intelligence 
was Florence, then ruled by the fortunate family 
of Medici. The one at that time on the throne 
was a merchant of genius, sprung from the people, 
yet governing nobles. On attaining power, he 
opened his town to all the exiles of Constantino- 
ple, and the G-reeks of the lower empire, who bore 
with them the philosophy and poetry of Greece. 
His successor obtained the title of Father of his 
Country — a glorious surname, which was nothing 
more. One of them was banished for his vices ; 
another, Lorenzo the Magnificent^ a kind of philoso- 
pher, full of grace and urbanity, the friend of Po- 



FLORENCE. 103 

litiaiio, and protector of Micliael Angelo, was the 
father of Leo X,, the King of Eaffaelle. 

And when we reflect thfit these men preserved 
as a patrimony the noble, sacred passion for the 
fine arts; that they arose during an epoch of 
luxury and pride; that they governed a people 
of sensualists, naturally inclined to poetry and art 
in all its forms ; when we remember that, in these 
Italian towns, art was the only medium of testing 
fortune, good taste, mind, and genius ; that it was 
universal, within and without the city, in the 
palace, in the temple, on the ramparts, at the 
sword-hilt — nay, even on the wood of the Prie 
Dieu and fauteuils — we shall finally comprehend 
how it was, that so many masterpieces, thus pro- 
duced by the caprice of some, the genius of others, 
and for the common glory, still manifest such a 
degree of magnificence in these noble cities, some 
of which have retained but the name and immor- 
tal memory of all their splendid works. 

It would require a large book to write what 
has often been attempted, not the history, but 
rather the biography of the Medici ! 

We leave that work to M. Thiers, that he may 
depict Cosmo de Medicis drawing all antiquity 
from its oblivion and its ruins. Cosmo sent sa- 



104 FLOKENCE. 

vans into France, Italy, Germany, and the East, 
expressly to collect books scattered since the great 
shipwreck of the Eoman world. It is thus that 
he prepared the Lanrentinian Library, founded 
by Lorenzo the Magnificent, his grandson. This 
should be visited after seeing the Duomo of Flo- 
rence, and the place of the Old Palace. Learned 
antiquity has nowhere remaining more sacred 
relics. It is Michael Angelo (toujours luil) who 
commenced this sanctuary. The windows were 
designed by a pupil of Eaffaelle. The Library 
contains only the rarest manuscripts, such as a 
Yirgil of the fourteenth centary, the Pandects 
taken by the Pisans at the siege of Am alfi, written 
by Tribonian himself. These are the five first 
books of the Annals of Tacitus, the most glorious 
conquest of Leo X.; a copy of the Decameron, by 
Boccaccio; the manuscript of Longus, embellished 
with the too-famous ink-spot of Paul Louis Cou- 
vier; the Familiar Epistles of Cicero, by the hand 
of Petrarch, who discovered in them an antique 
manuscript, and transcribed them with passion 
equal to that with which Jean-Jacques Eousseau 
copied the letters of Heloise; a Terence, copied 
by Poliziano from the pamphlets of that admirable 
Aretino, the man devoid of shame. And what 



FLORENCE. 105 

still ! Amid these noble debris is placed the finger 
of Gralileo — a sad relic! It is not in this rude 
bottle that you will find the finger of Galileo, that 
followed from earth the finger of God in the 
heavens. 

It is especially in the Museum they have 
founded that we must seek the Medici; it is there 
that they have left the indelible traces of their 
transit over this land of Italy ; it is there that they 
may be discovered in full glory — Leo X., Clement 
YII., and Lorenzo the Magnificent. In the Uffizzii, 
a gallery which has nothing of the majesty of our 
Louvre, you will discover, and not without emo- 
tion, many of the popular masterpieces which 
have enacted in the arts the same rdle with the 
jEneid and Iliad in letters. After traversing a 
long suite of antique busts, ISTero, Augustus, Cali- 
gula, Junius, Agrippina, Tiberius, all the stupid, 
ferocious heroes of Suetonius, you find yourself in 
the midst of the sixteenth century; and malgre 
vous, however absorbed with ancient Florence, 
involuntarily compare these simple, graceful, me- 
lancholy marbles with the faultless chefs-d^oeuvre 
of antiquity. Then, silently you pass on to sur- 
vey the painting gallery. Here are Florentines, 
Venitians, Romans, and Genoese — among whom, 



106 FLORENCE. 

occasionally, shines Paul Yeronese, supreme mas- 
ter, or else it is Titian that illumines the shade 
with his soft radiance. Further onward, other 
statues arrest the eye, antique or modern bronzes 
— Yictory, Hercules, Bacchus; then Etruscan 
vases; then portraits, many Holbeins, and the 
portrait of Philip TV. by Yelasquez ; a Brutus of 
Michael Angelo ; a sketch. A maker of Latin 
verses has pretended that Michael Angelo did not 
finish this work, because Brutus slew Csesar; to 
which an Englishman has replied in other Latin 
verses, tha^t the great artist was arrested by the 
exalted idea he had of Brutus. Michael Angelo 
feared neither Brutus nor Caesar. Egypt even 
has thrust into this museum her rude monuments 
and shapeless papyrus. An entire hall is conse- 
crated to portraits of celebrated painters, executed 
by themselves. In general, these portraits are 
unworthy of the heads they represent, and of the 
names which have signed them. Eaffaelle is pale 
and listless ; his handsome features are reproduced 
with unparalleled nonchalance. Titian wears a 
fatigued air; Michael Angelo is sad. Andrea del 
Sarto, in the way of portraits, could only paint 
that of his wife. Scarcely could you recognize 
Paul Yeronese; Domenichino is nothing more than 



FLOKENCE. 107 

a weeping monk; Holbein lias barely bestowed 
time enough, to cover the wood on which he has 
painted himself. Angelica Kaufman has repre- 
sented herself as a beautiful Miornonne, smilinsr, 
and richly attired. Ah! the portrait of Leo- 
nardo da Yinci is admirable ! This, at least, is 
faithful ! But, silence ! we now enter the sacred 
place — into the Tribune — the sanctum sanctorum 
of the fine arts ! 

The tribune of the Florence Gallery is cele- 
brated ; it is arranged with a certain innocent 
charlatanism which may be willingly pardoned ; 
the cupola is of mother-of-pearl; the pavement of 
precious marble. The temple is worthy of the 
god who inhabits it. Underneath this roof, in 
effect, live and breathe the Venus of Cleomenes, 
the Little Apollo, the Fawn, the Grinder, and the 
Wrestlers. They are surrounded by the Yirgin of 
Michael Angelo, two Yeuuses of Titian, and many 
masterpieces of Paul Yeronese, Yan Dyke, An- 
drea del Sarto, and Kaffaelle. 

I confess that, at first, in presence of such chefs- 
d^ceuvre, one of which would be the glory of a 
city, my very heart was stirred within me. 
Scarcely can you venture a whisper for fear that 
all these naked divinities will vanish from sight. 



108 FLOEENCE. 

The Yenus, a beauty, long buried and discovered 
without arms, is surely a perfect marble, but it is 
only a marble. Not a defect in that beautiful 
statue, but on the contrary, at each contour, a new 
grace — what feet ! what stature ! what a charming 
little head I what a perfect form I But, we repeat, 
it is but a marble. The attitude of this young 
woman, unveiled, and conscious of it, is painful. 
"We cannot admit that Yenus, in Olympus, could 
suspect that she was naked. If so, then Yenus 
must have been the most unhappy of goddesses. 
But the Apollo! — he dreams not of his nudity, 
nor does the spectator think of it. Moreover, 
even in her faultless beauty, this Yenus is cold 
and passionless; she perfectly resembles those 
admirable fa^r personages whom every one ob- 
serves, yet no one loves. What a contrast this 
statue presents to the two exquisite forms of 
Titian I Here are living creatures! — life, flesh, 
beauty I It was demanded of Titian, where he 
found his models? "Everywhere," replied he; 
and, in proof, he placed before him his brother, a 
gross, stout man, and from thence composed the 
most beautiful of his two Yenuses. The Apollo 
is a complete pendant to the Yenus ; it represents 
a small, frail, slender young man formed in a 



FLOKENCE. 109 

mould. The Dancing Fawn is adorable — vivacious, 
light, coquettish, mischievous, mocking, amorous, 
and charming. There is nothing here so line as 
the marble group of the Two Wrestlers ; every 
muscle is in motion, every tendon at work — the 
veins, nerves, bones, hands, feet, body — all are 
agitated; the head alone remains calm. The 
Grinder, which we have so frequently admired in 
the Garden of the Tuileries, is probably the most 
beautiful marble which antiquity has left us. 

It is strange to see beside the reclining Yenus 
of Titian, the portrait of a Cardinal by the same 
Titian ; and beside La Fornarina the mistress of 
Eaffaelle, the portrait of Julius II. by the same 
Eaffaelle. There is also a St. John the Baptist 
by Leonardo da Yinci, a Yirgin of Corregio, and 
a Charles Y. of Yandyke. Here, Charles is no 
longer master of the Spanish dominions ; he is not 
even the monk of Aranjuez ; he walks, with un- 
covered head, on the shore of the noisy sea. And, 
finally, there is a St. John the Baptist of Kafiaelle. 
It is certainly the same St. John whose sale I wit- 
nessed among the effects of the Duke de Maille ! 
Cruel precipitation, thus to barter the relics of the 
dead ! And this sold picture belonged to the 
gallery of the Louvre, which has failed to discover 
10 



110 FLOEEKCE. 

it ! The figure of St. Jolm is young and true, the 
landscape dark, the painting faded. The two pic- 
tures bear an ominous resemblance for two pos- 
sessors; one is beyond doubt a copy, but as 
certainly a copy of Eaffaelle. 

As a completion to the countless riches of the 
gallery of the Ufiizzii, there is the incredible re- 
union of designs of the greatest masters from 
Giotto down to modern times. There is also a 
collection of moneys and medals, from the heavy 
money of the Etruscan to the gold florin, that 
beautiful coin, once so admired by the rest of 
Europe, and nearly disappeared from Florence. 
And, finally, there is the accumulation of precious 
bijoux, so well adapted to turn the heads of all 
the feminine majesties of the world — rings, neck- 
laces, rare caskets, gold buttons, chests of ebony, 
ivory or crystal bracelets — inestimable marvels, 
wherewith the fair dames of the sixteenth century 
embellished their fingers, arms, hands, ears, and 
superb brows. 

In this brilliant corner of the gallery reigns 
Benvenuto Cellini, the Florentine goldsmith, as 
sovereign master. He was, at the same time, a 
goldsmith, an armorer, iron -monger, statuary, and 
still a great artist and a bandit. The first of all 



FLORENCE. Ill 

tlie men of Florence to excel in the arts, Benve- 
nuto Cellini abused Ms genius, making it the re- 
laxation of certain privileges of fortune. This 
man has exhausted more grace, art, and invention, 
in a buckle for the mantle of Francis I. or the 
Medici, than would have sufficed for a statue like 
the Perseus. Any pretext served to occupy his 
rare talent — the hilt of a sword, the handle of a 
dagger, a lady's ewer, or the habit of a cavalier. 
In this subaltern metier, he wasted his grenius while 
injuring his art. When you see art thus degene- 
rating, and artists thus forgetting their mission, 
be assured the decadence of that people is at hand. 
And, in effect, at the time that Benvenuto Cellini 
commences, there is no longer a Florentine Re- 
public. Michael Angelo is dead; the voice of 
Dante, which had reverberated for three centuries, 
is silent ; Petrarch has given place to his three 
imitators, and Boccaccio is no longer esteemed 
but as a frivolous tale-teller — he, the accomplished 
rival of Petrarch! There is no more great art; 
no great poetry; there are no more great monu- 
ments for Florence. It is the fatal hour of corrup- 
tion in manners and laws among the people, and 
with the nobles. Alexander YL, and his worthy 
daughter Lucretia — and the lover of that Lucretia, 



112 FLORENCE. 

Cardinal Bembo — the licentious, impure Petrarch, 
are, at this epoch, masters of Italian poetry. It is 
the time of frivolous satires, of obscene recitals, 
and amorous comedies. Machiavelli himself de- 
scends from the elevation of history to indulge in 
these spirituelle frivolities. Thus it was, till at 
length came into the world, if not to purify 
all these gallantries, at least to ridicule them, 
Ariosto, the merry skeptic and great poet, from 
whom Voltaire has borrowed his verses, to com- 
mit the most wicked, but also th« most ingenious 
of attempts. 

What a singular mind had this Ariosto I What 
must have been the universal astonishment of 
grave Italy, as she listened to that poetry which 
convulsed her with laughter ! Imagine him, this 
enthusiastic railer, young, handsome, brilliant, 
rich in his apparel, amorous as a fool, sarcastic 
as a sage, fearlessly casting, here and there, the 
keenest sallies of his heart and soul ! He dipped 
profoundly into the poetic spring, and sprinkled 
all who thirsted for its beneficent wave. A great 
writer in frivolous romance — a poet in exagge- 
rated recital, a wit aud man of genius at all 
times — he charmed entire Italy, and dazzled her 
with his thousand flashes of diamonds, opals, and 



FLOEENCE. 113 

amethysts. Ariosto is the Yoltaire of an age 
which still clings to its religious creeds, the harm- 
less Yoltaire, happy to exist, to be in the worlcl, 
devoid of envy, malice, or cruelty, free from ambi- 
tion, content with little, and proud, in the very 
zenith of his triumph, to build himself a house as 
small as that of Socrates, expressly to inscribe on 
the fronton two admirable Latin verses, of which 
the following is the sense: "The house is small, 
but convenient. It intercepts the sun from no 
one. It is sufficiently elegant for him who in- 
habits it, and, moreover, it has been paid for with 
his own money." 

Such was the dazzling man who was to absorb 
Eafifaelle in his brilliant light ; for, in reality, it 
is through Ariosto that Eaffaelle escapes from the 
influence of Dante. Immediately on leaving the 
school of the severe Perugino his master, the 
young Rafiaelle, reared in all the austerity of 
Florentine art, represents in a picture Dante and 
Savonarola, the first gods of his imagination, the 
heroes of antique Florence ; but soon, when he 
had penetrated to the court of Leo X., among that 
elegant people of scoffers and jesters, and when 
he had encountered the enchanter Ariosto — be- 
hold! Eaffaelle bids adieu forever to Dante and 
10* 



114 FLOKENCE. 

his doctrines, to ancient Florence, to republican 
sentiments, to catholic simplicity, to philosophic 
theology, of which Michael Angelo had been the 
sculptor, Brunellesco the architect, and, but for 
Ariosto, himself the painter! "What must have 
been the grief of Dante, when, from his paradise 
on high, he beheld Eaffaelle escaping from him ! — 
Eaffaelle abandoning Christian austerity for pro- 
fane mythology ! — Eafiaelle lending to holy Yir-^ 
gins the earthly beauty of his fair mistresses ! — 
Eaffaelle placing, at the Yatican, between Homer 
and Dante, Ariosto himself, the volatile, sarcastic 
genius, who would have affrighted old Michael 
Angelo as a monster ! 

Time fails me to descant any farther now of 
that admirable Florentine school which has pro- 
duced so many masterpieces, or to describe the 
Pitti Palace, the tombs of the Medici, and modern 
Florence, which I have thoroughly explored. 
Again, the past has superseded the present! 
Pardonnez-moil 



FLORENCE. 115 



CHAPTER III. 

THE PITTI PALACE — IMPERIAL POGGIO — 
PRINCESS MATHILDE — BONAPARTE — MA- 
CHIAVELLI. 

Adieu, then, Elorence! Florence, the repub- 
lican and royal! Florence, the catholic and ex- 
communicated! Adieu, most liberal of cities, 
who hast sustained alone the burden of thy pas- 
sions, thy prejudices, animosities, and varied dis- 
sensions, while casting abroad, with exhaustless 
hand, eldest daughter of Europe, thy sciences, 
thy institutions, thy poetry, and fine arts! Adieu, 
then, thou admirable and admired ! — who, at thy 
risk and peril, hast taught future nations how to 
rend asunder the yoke of tyrants ; how to found 
liberty; how a great people may exercise, at the 
same time, war and commerce ; how, by force of 
genius, to replace lost power— poor, yet rich Flo- 
rence! most courageous and generous of cities, 
who hast, with thine own hands, rent thy bowels 
in laborious efforts to attain liberty, honor, a 
future in the world! She has been the first to 



116 FLORENCE. 

divine all those institutions and sciences of wliich 
we moderns are so proud ! As Dante first pointed 
to the cross of the south, so had she her citizen 
army, her magistrates elected by the people. 
She was the first to separate the two powers — till 
then indissoluble among nations — Church and 
State — the first to be learned, eloquent, and ele- 
gant; then, finally, all these destinies accomplish- 
ed, she deposits her arms, descends from her throne 
of wool and gold, closes at once her citadel and 
counting-house, and inscribes in her Pantheon the 
three great names of her history — Dante, Michael 
Angelo, and Galileo. As much as she was once 
turbulent and impassioned, is she now calm and 
tranquil ; she has all the dignity of defeat, as she 
had all the glgry of combat ; and even as she had 
lived first among intelligent nations, so also was 
she the first to succumb; but what a glorious 
defeat ! how grand in her abasement ! how beau- 
tiful in death ! and with what sacred respect do 
they come from all parts of the universe to con- 
template her lying in her magnificent tomb ! 

Yes, it is in visiting Florence that you espe- 
cially comprehend and divine the respect awarded 
to great men who are no more. These mute 
ruins ; this matchless refulgence, which is but the 



FLOEENCE. 117 

reflection of past times ; these empty palaces, with 
echo devoured by sileoce; this universe of sculp- 
tured stones, no longer inhabited but by chefs- 
cVoeuvre^ whose life is eternal ! — all this strikes 3^ou 
with unspeakable admiration. There remains to 
this great city only the soul which animates it ; 
its tenement, the body, has vanished forever. 
Strangers are come to people this desert — foreign 
princes, citizens, magistrates, foreign soldiers, and 
artists ; but all of them have the consciousness of 
the grandeur they replace. They retreat as far 
as practicable to admire, at leisure, the corpse of 
Florence ; to hear the last accents of her intelli- 
gence and genius ! They are the motionless in- 
habitants of a dead town; invisible kings within 
a destroyed republic; exiles of all parts and all 
opinions of the world, who arrange themselves for 
a day amid these Guelph and Ghibelline ruins, 
without discerning their hidden meaning; whose 
eyes see nothing in these museums; whose ears 
hear naught in these mighty sounds ; whose hands 
touch nothing amid this decay; whose feet en- 
counter not one of the one hundred thousand 
beaten paths that intersect this dust — phantoms 
to replace the populace, and noble Signors, mer- 
chants and soldiers, poets and goldsmiths of 



118 FLORENCE. 

Florence! Ah! it is wliat I love! I love that 
tacit respect for such a city; a respect so pro- 
found, that not one of those who inhabit or 
govern it any longer dares to say, "I am a citizen 
of Florence!" I love that admiration so sincere, 
that no one in this marble town dares any more 
to regard even her ruins, but treat her, the abode 
of miracles, as an ordinary place, wherein to eat, 
drink, sleep, and pass, without presuming to be 
born or to die on that soil which has borne or 
produced so many giants — an extinguished vol- 
cano, upon which not a mother dare place the 
cradle of her son, a child the tomb of his father ! 
Have you seen a chariot passing there? It pro- 
ceeds noiselessly; you hear not even the hoof of 
the horse at full speed. It is the image of the 
new society, formed beneath the shade of the 
Campanile of Giotto; the history of the new 
power that has glided between the horse of Cosmo 
and the Yenus de Medicis. 

Moreover, in laying aside all this ill-restrained 
enthusiasm, life is so happy, so calm and tranquil, 
so joyous and easy at Florence! There is within 
these appeased walls, nnder the shadow of the 
throne, deposited there without violence, as might 
be borne a velvet seat into a garden, so much 



FLOKENCE. ' 119 

sun, freshness, and repose, that truly, were the 
Archangel to appear ivith his trump, to awaken 
Dante and Michael Angelo, and with them the 
varied passions which composed their retinue, we 
would be tempted to say to him, " Silence 1 in 
mercy to ns! Arouse not all these extinct gran- 
deurs till we are no more! This age, in effect, is 
no longer so young, enthusiastic, and devoted, as 
to assist even remotely in the revolutions which 
have arisen in this place. Silence, then ! — awake 
not these turbulent and magnanimous dead ! Let 
us live in peace, "under the shadow of the palaces 
they have reared, the sciences they have founded ; 
and believe me, like the swine of the Scripture, 
sated with acorns, let us not raise the head to 
regard the tree whence the fruit has fallen.!" 

Accordingly, despite my resolution to see no- 
thing in Florence but herself, to belong entirely 
to the great debris which I wished to study in 
detail, I irresistibly yielded to the double inertia 
which pervades the town. I passed from the 
solemn silence of the libraries to the chattering 
silence of the promenades ; went from the museum 
to the ball, from the public place to the ducal 
palace ; and intermingled the three weeks of my 
sojourn with concerts, dinners, and historic studies. 



120 FLORENCE. 

I involuntarily passed from the catlieclral to the 
theatre, from the Campanile to the Corso, from 
the tomb of Machiavelli to the court-gala. I have 
culled, at once, both brambles and flowers; lis- 
tened, at the same time, to the Divina Gommedia 
and the Orlando Furioso. I have prostrated my- 
self at the feet of Christian, and walked arm in 
arm with profane Florence. I have pursued, with 
my respectful admiration, the holy Beatrice, and 
drunk from the cup of Bianca Capella quaffed 
by Montaigne — and talked of love with Madam 
Fiametta and Madam Pampinee, the heroines of 
Boccaccio. I have had paroxysms of incredible 
sadness, and moments of joy approaching delirium. 
I have seen passing before me all kinds of appa- 
ritions, shrouded in funeral crape, or crowned 
with roses ; in the morning on the ramparts, in 
the evening beneath them, I have been, by turns, 
an Italian of the sixteenth, a German of the nine- 
teenth century; and in thy grandeur as in thy 
ruins, in thy past prosperity and thy present 
abasement, in thy mighty din of other days and 
in thy actual silence, in thy life and death, thy 
palaces and tombs, I have ever found thee grand 
and fair, O Florence! and Avorthy our utmost 
enthusiasm, gratitude, and respect. 



FLOEENCE. 121 

To narrate all that I have felt and learned in 
these three weeks of my life, is impossible. To 
recall it all, will require months of recollection. 
Much more leisure is necessary than is supposed 
to arrange such visions with some order and 
method. For instance, when scarcely awake, I 
would repair to the Hall of Lancers, and from 
thence to witness the first movements within the 
Duomo; then to salute the Yenus and Apollo; 
and next hasten to the Pitti Palace, entering it as 
if it were my own dwelling. This is the resi- 
dence of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. It connects 
with the Old Palace by an immense covered gal- 
lery; but that is the only analogy between them. 
The Pitti Palace is the finest in Florence — con- 
clusive evidence of its splendor. It consists, with 
all the rest of these illustrious houses, of one 
grand dark wall, whose compact stones seem to 
unite together with incredible determination. 
Some of them jut menacingly from the surface, 
while others, on the contrary, recede inwardly, 
giving to the immovable mass an admirable varie- 
ty. M. Delecluze, with his good sense and un- 
equalled science, has discovered the history of the 
first of the Pitti family ; and it is a very similar 
biography to that of all the noted citizens of Flo- 
11 



122 FLOEENCE. 

rence, including the Medici. This Pitti was origi- 
nally a poor, petty merchant, who travelled to 
Yenice, driving a horse before him. When com- 
merce was nnpropitious, our man played at cards 
and dice, where his good luck verges on dis- 
honesty. He falls ill at Pisa, and, at the point of 
expiring on the pallet of a wretched inn, a troop 
of Bohemians passes along, who cure him by 
making him dance and drink. Scarcely recover- 
ed, he plays, wins, and buys six horses. He next 
becomes enamoured of a married woman, who 
sends him, not to the devil, but to Eome, which 
was the same thing in those days. He obeys the 
lady, goes to Eome, and what is more, returns, 
and the dame laughs in his face. As a consola- 
tion, he becomes a ranting politician, and, in the 
heat of a dispute, kills a fellow- citizen with the 
sword. Banished from Florence as a Guelph, he 
puts himself at the head of a troop of exiles to 
force an entrance into the city. The defender of 
the town encounters and makes him prisoner. 
Monsieur Pitti was about to be hung, when he 
escapes by a stratagem. Then, seeing that the 
air of Florence was unfavorable to him, he goes 
to try his fortune at Brussels. As he had the 
reputation of being a fine player, the Duke of 



FLORENCE. 123 

Brabant said to him, " Dance and play, Lombard, 
and fear not for the rest I" Accordingly, the Lom- 
bard dances, plays, and loses — the Duke pays his 
debts. From Brussels, Pitti repairs to England, 
to treat concerning the ransom of John of Bra- 
bant. Tn the month of November, he was at the 
battle of Eosbecque, in the train of Oliver Clisson, 
notwithstanding all his sympathies {de lui Pitti !) 
for Arteveld. He was also at the capture of Mons, 
with one Lucquois for a friend, and thirty-six 
cavaliers for a troop ; he lost there his thirty -six 
cavaliers, and his friend the Lucquois. After- 
wards, still in the service of Charles YL, Pitti 
freights a vessel of war; wins, from the Count of 
Savoy, thirty-five thousand gold francs ; then goes 
to Florence, and marries. He next returns to 
Paris, and enters the household of the Duke of 
Orleans, brother to the King. He sells three 
horses to the Duke of Burgundy, and with the 
money purchases one hundred and ten tuns of 
Burgundy wine, and gains a thousand percentage 
therefrom. The same day, being at play in the 
house of the Duke of Orleans, he is insulted by 
one of the stoutest Seigneurs of France, and 
fiercely demands satisfaction from the noble; the 
affair requires the intervention of the King. In 



124 FLORENCE. 

Germany, the emperor commissions Pitti to treat 
for liim respecting the loan of one hundred thou- 
sand ducats from the Yenitians. Thus, by play- 
ing, winning, selling, buying men, vessels, soldiers, 
horses. Burgundy wine, and arranging loans, he 
returns to his country rich, and therefore import- 
ant. After intrusting him with many magis- 
tracies, the Florentine Republic nominates him 
ambassador to the Holy Father. They next send 
him to France, to solicit of the King the liberty 
of two Florentines; he arrives in time to witness 
the assassination of the Duke of Orleans. Am- 
bassador as he was, Pitti still games, and wins 
five hundred crowns. On his return to Florence, 
he is elected Consul of the Art of Wool, then 
Captain of the Pisan Guard, then to the Council 
of Ten, and in these various positions he still 
continues a banker — he lends, exchanges, buys, 
sells, games, urges his fortune, intrigues, and thus 
founds that almost royal family by whom this 
splendid palace was erected, which Catherine de 
Medicis remembered when constructing the Lux- 
embourg, which, however, is a very faint, remote, 
inexact counterpart of the Pitti Palace. 

In this edifice, built by money-lenders, is con- 
tained one of the finest museums of Europe. 



FLOKENCE. 125 

There are chefs-d^oenvre^ selected from among others 
and bj the greatest connoissenrs. They occnpj 
these vast saloons as the only place worthy of 
them. Strange! once entered, you feel no em- 
barrassment, assured of your enthusiasm. How 
shall I enumerate them ! There is a Yeniis of 
Titian, more beautiful than the two of the Tribune ; 
this Yenus is placed under a ceiling of Paul Ve- 
ronese. There is a Judith of Allori, that admir- 
able person, so serene, yet so resolved ; certainly 
the painter Allori had there a fair but terrible 
mistress. There are twenty pictures of Andrea 
del Sarto, a kind of Titian, full of caprice and 
imagination. An Ezekiel of Eembrandt — you 
may judge of this picture by the engraving Eem- 
brandt has made of it ; it is as fine as the Bible 
and the Prophets. There are portraits of Yan 
Dyke and Rubens, a Battle of Michael Angelo, 
the Three Parcse of Leonardo da Yinci — and what 
women ! I can only compare this terrible poem 
to a lost Magdalen in the gallery of the School 
of Fine Arts at Florence. That Magdalen is half 
clothed, in tatters, swarthy, wrinkled, and wan; 
you can scarcely divine that she has been beau- 
tiful ; and it is manifest that she has witnessed 
mortifications, fasting, abandonment, and poverty ; 
11* 



126 FLORENCE. 

and that she has passed through the slowest and 
most terrible degradations of body and soul. 
Behold a true Magdalen, and not that fille de joie 
with bare neck, blonde hair, and plump liands, 
so often exhibited. Then also, in fine, there is 
at the Pitti Palace, beside the portrait of Leo X., 
the most beautiful, the calmest, the most transpa- 
rent, the most admirable — pardon me. Heaven, if 
I blaspheme — the most profane of the Madonnas 
of Eaffaelle ! 

Such, is the exhibition which may be seen every 
day and at all hours in this hospitable palace, 
open to every comer, at the time even when the 
Grand Duke dines with his family behind a 
screen, to impose no restraint on visitors. 

Issuing from the palace, the daily fete awaits 
you — for every day, in Florence, is assuredly a 
festival. You dine at a table covered with, fruits 
and flowers. After dinner, is the promenade of 
the Cassino, a charming peninsula formed by the 
Arno. It resembles the Champ Elysees, but more 
calm and rural. Sheep and cows graze in these 
sweet meads; on the trees perches the golden 
pheasant. Every one arrives there in a carriage ; 
the sovereign himself is of the company ; they 
regard each other, salute, exchange a thousand 



FLOKENCE. 127 

smiles from a distance, and repose as if they had 
toiled all the day. It is really tlie hour ivhen the 
women are fair and serene — when, in effect, Ital- 
ian life commences. But, let them enjoy it, these 
Italian rustics, for, in an instant, every evening at 
a signal given suddenly, that fair crowd disperses. 
They return to the city in full speed, brush care- 
lessly, in passing, the Feroni Palace, in other times 
a redoubtable Bastile, now a lodging-house, v/hose 
very turrets are inhabited by honest idlers. Hast- 
en — see, in the lower saloon, a vender of sherbet, 
who has replaced the armed chief of the house; 
observe, on the Cathedral Place, all that noble 
company, pausing to listen to an improvisator. 
Onward ! — quick ! — the opera commeuces — the 
house is dazzling with light and ornament — every 
box is a small saloon for laughing and talking, for 
they hearken little even to accomplished singers. 
What a murmur of ingenious flatteries, sparkling 
gallantries, and well-told tales ! In these almost 
private chatting coteries of a whole city, the Italian 
genius is still evident ; you readily discover the 
jocular caprice of the ancient story-tellers; the sen- 
sual gallantry, faintly disguised beneath the trans- 
parent veil of the disciples of Plato. These artless 
Italians call themselves accomplished musicians, 



128 FLORENCE. 

and really believe that they love this great art, 
and yet they scarcely listen to what the per- 
formers are saying ! What care they for come- 
dian, dancing, music, singer, or dramatic excite- 
ment ? They are their own comedians, dancers, 
musicians, and singers. Why should they pay 
artists' to sell them artificial passion? They, 
themselves, have passion to dispose of. 

Thus passes the hour devoted to the opera. 
Scarcely does the curtain fall ere they eagerly 
repair to the ball. Each of these antiquated man- 
sions is suddenly illuminated from every window, 
the doors are open, no one is specially invited, 
the privilege is universal; young or old, hand- 
some or ugly, prince or clown, all men are equal 
before that eternal Florence festival. Immediately 
on entering tnese benevolent saloons, you are in 
the midst of Boccaccio's recitals. Prince, marquis. 
Count, all leave their titles at the door with their 
mantles. The nonchalant Italians become ani- 
mated at the sound of this music, and surrender 
themselves body and soul to the waltz, whoever 
be the waltzer. Yes, and they are really beau- 
tiful, though negligent, carelessly attired, without 
the aid of art or studied elegance ; sometimes 
without taste, and never gracefully. I say it. 



FLORENCE. 129 

witli no desire to offend them, that these fair 
Italians are the least coquettish women in Europe. 
Such as the good God has made them do they 
appear, without disguising anything, neither add- 
ing nor suppressing aught to deceive their lovers, 
whom they frankly distinguish, or from their 
husbands, from whom they conceal nothing ! And 
if you could witness their moderation in enjoy- 
ment — their calm happiness ! All our romance 
writers have lied when they have told ns of the 
dishevelled passion of Italy. A passion is only 
dishevelled when extraordinary ; how should that 
which is a daily sentiment be so denominated. 
Thus let them enjoy themselves, therefore, in the 
artless indulgence of that transparent happiness 
which springs from their inmost soul, as the spar- 
kle of the glowworm hidden beneath the rose- 
leaf! There is nothing among us comparable to 
a Florence ball or festival. Our fair Parisians 
themselves — yes, our Paris ladies, those beautiful, 
elegant, charming, dissimulating creatures, with 
the best arranged toilets in the world, the most 
perfect coquettes, with their soft whisper, ironic 
smile, form so flexible, foot so delicate, what 
would they do if suddenly transported among 
artless women, who dance, amuse themselves, and 



130 FLORENCE. 

love as naturally as tliey breathe, and know 
nothing beyond! 

This perpetual fete of Florence, though never- 
failing, yet varies infinitely. It takes all forms, 
borrows all costumes, appropriates every place — 
to-day in the choir of the Duomo, to-morrow at 
the Cassino. When I arrived there they told me 
sadly — if anything could be spoken sadly in that 
happy city — "you are come too late, all the fetes 
are over" — and yet what a succession of them in 
a few days! His imperial and royal Highness, 
the Grand Duke Leopold, gave a ball at the Pitti 
Palace, and another at the Poggio. Imagine the 
court of Ammonato, surmounted by a murmuring 
fountain, lighted by a thousand candles, and those 
purified gardens, which still recall Cosmo I., the 
lover of Bianca Capella, Isabella his daughter, 
and his son Don Prancis. As to the imperial 
Poggio, imagine the Petit Trianon buried in 
woods. You find a long suite of lighted galleries, 
and enter a vast hall, or rather garden, filled with 
dancing and melody. In the midst of the fete, 
affable to all, a joyous participator in the happi- 
ness that surrounds him, walks the prince with 
his wife and daughter. The assembly is a charm- 
ing mixture of princes and citizens, great ladies 



FLORENCE. 131 

and young girls ; tliere is no constitutional king- 
dom where there is such unrestrained liberty in 
pleasure. But this freedom is not devoid of re- 
serve and decorum. The slow and capricious 
promenade in these softly illumined gardens re- 
sembles that of happy souls in the Elysium of 
Fenelon. Listen, spectator, and you may hear 
the slightest word whispered in these groves. 
Meanwhile, beside the fountains, or at the foot of 
the white statues which detach themselves from 
the somewhat intrusive shade of the orange-trees, 
a crowd of assiduous attendants serve the guests 
with French wines, iced fruits, and pheasants of 
the Cassino. And no one is astonished, no one 
asks the occasion of this fete. Florence, once so 
turbulent, at present is curious about nothing, 
not even her pleasures. 

In the morning, as a refreshment, there is a de- 
jeuner in the house of Prince Jerome Bonaparte, for- 
merly King of Westphalia. Among the Florentine 
ruins, shines with mournful ^clat the family of the 
emperor, still French, even in the heart of Flo- 
rence; the only family which she has not subdued. 
They have adopted her joyous life, and perfect 
oblivion of ambition. Florence loves these exiled 
Bonapartes, as she has ever cherished all exiles — 



132 FLOEENCE. 

she, whose history was so long one of proscrip- 
tions and banishments. Prince Jerome accord- 
ingly gives his ftte^ to which he had invited the 
Bourbons of Naples and Bourbons of Spain — and 
they had come. We encountered at the house of 
Prince Jerome, and not without emotion, a young 
Bonaparte, fair and blooming, free from ambition, 
with no regret save for her country. This Bona- 
parte is charming and inoffensive as the other 
was powerful and terrible. It is impossible to 
be fairer and more perfectly beautiful than the 
Princess Mathilde Bonaparte. She received us 
with all the ingenuous grace of scarce eighteen 
years — not as an exiled princess, but like a fair 
young Parisian girl, forgotten on the shores of 
the Arno. She did the honors of her house with 
perfect elegance — with as much ease and modesty 
as if inhabiting the chateau of the Taileries. 
After the repast, she danced like a simple Italian, 
and was graceful and charming. What a pity to 
bury under that great name this scion of blood 
so noble! and how should France regret a pearl 
of such fine water fallen from the imperial crown! 
Then, there were concerts, suppers, endless 
processions, horse-races, chariot-races, antique cha- 
riots, and Koman charioteers in the costume of 



FLORENCE. 183 

the circus, and brilliant illuminations. For the 
Feast of St. John, the Arno was illuminated with, 
inexhaustible fireworks: barques freighted with 
lights and singers ; comedies by amateurs ; an 
entire opera, sung in admirable style by the 
Prince and Princess P., young persons full of 
graceful whim, who left a great name at the door 
of tlie theatre, to become only excellent artists. 
I sliould never end were I to enumerate all the 
hours consecrated to Florentine festivals. More- 
over, to complete that spirit of universal enjoy- 
ment, there are people of all nations commingled 
in the pleasure, wbich. changes according to taste 
and humor, each contending who can be most 
lively. But they are no longer English, Germans, 
French, nor Eussians — they are all Florentines. 
And how is it possible to resist such invitations 
as this: La Contessa * * * dard nel suo giardino 
un piccolo trattenimento musicale^ nelle sere di lu- 
nedi 25 giugno^ e del mercoledi 11 e 18. And the 
music was divine! and the garden was softly 
lighted! and the women were charming! and the 
palace was built by Eaffaelle ! — and in the height 
of the /^^e more than one young dancer disappear- 
ed; he went to disguise himself with a black 
cowl, and then flew to the succor of some poor 
12 



134 FLOKENCE. 

dying man! Admirable benevolence ! concealing 
itself as if it were a crime, or love ! Frequently, 
in leaving these brilliant assemblies, yon will 
encounter an order of mercy tbus attired, bearing 
a dead body to its last asylum, lighted only by 
one faneral torch. Then suddenly, the illusion 
dispelled, you bid adieu to frivolous, amorous, 
gallant Morence, to return to sad and serious Flo- 
rence. You flee far away from the Florence of 
Boccaccio, intoxicated with pleasure, to trace the 
Florence of Dante; for this town evidently apper- 
tains to two opposite geniuses, to two different 
muses, to two passions, which follow not the same 
route. You will recognize both one and the 
other, the city of Dante and the city of Ariosto ; 
the Florence of the Divina Oommedia, and that of 
ludicrous poems and licentious stories; the one 
stern even in her pleasures, the other joyous in 
the midst of her despair, and who, in the very 
height of the pestilence of 1438, could invent 
charming recitals of love. 

I have more than once gone to Santa Maria 
Novella in the morning, recalling to mind that, 
beneath this gilded dome, in this cloister adorned 
with paintings, was the appointed rendezvous of 
the seven fair dames of the Decameron : " Their 



FLORENCE. 185 

ages were from eigliteen to twentj-seven years; 
all, after the service, would retire to a corner of 
tlie cliurch, and form a circle to discuss the news 
of tlie day." I sought in vain the seven fair 
dames, but I found in their place a young man 
who was vending the crime de heaute — a final 
image of that profane Florence which converted 
the church into a boudoir ! 

But in good truth, it is not after sportive, 
joyous Florence he should pursue who goes for a 
little time to Italy, but he must contemplate her 
as the austere, poetic, believing Eepublic — the 
city of Dante and Michael Angelo ! Behold the 
worthy object of our admiration and study! — be- 
hold true Florence ! Believe me, young men, let 
Boccaccio forget himself in the frivolous recitals 
of which La Fontaine has robbed him, and even in 
the midst of the pestilence be grave and serious. 
Moreover, this is not the time to rejoice and sing. 
Let the young Italians and their fair mistresses 
thus live from day to day in the precepts of their 
amorous poets. But, would you understand aright 
this great city, follow the man who issues from 
his house one morning during the pestilence of 
1527. lie, who takes even the scourge in earnest 
here, is Nicola INIachiavelli. No frivolous recitals 



136 FLORENCE. 

now, no more banquets, fetes^ nor fair dames, bnt 
a profound, austere grief. The old Florentine 
traverses silently the unfortunate city, filled with 
mendicants, robbers, and grave-diggers. He passes 
by San Miniato, where recently the wool-carders 
made so great a tumult. It is silent and deserted. 
Santa Maria Novella, the Church of the Decame- 
ron, is full of biers. Santa Keparata, the Cathe- 
dral, contains only three priests, one saying mass, 
another chanting and playing the organ, the third, 
in fine, with hands and feet chained (a precaution 
used when the confessor was young and the peni- 
tent fair), was at the confessional. To listen to 
the mass thus chanted, there were in the side 
chapels three wrinkled, limping old women, and 
three devotceg on crutches. Where, then, were 
the people of Florence? Occupied in dying, or 
in interring their dead ! And this, too, was the 
first day of May ! At this hour, the past year, 
young maidens sang on the place of Santa Cruce, 
" Hail, month of May !" Now, the grave-diggers 
cry, " Long live the pestilence I" 

This was all that this stern sage encountered 
on his way; only in the midst of the tombs he 
discovers a young woman, pale and afflicted; 
bitter tears furrowed her fair cheeks; she tore 



FLORENCE. 13< 

her black hair — smote her breast and face! — 
her lover was dead ! " Miserable, imprudent avo • 
man," exclaimed Machiavelli, " wherefore thus 
weep a lover? — hast thou no discretion, no de- 
cency?" But she replied, "My lover ! my lover ! — 
away with modesty and duty — let me weep I" 
From thence Machiavelli proceeds to the church 
of Lo Spirito Santo ; the brothers there, regardless 
of the service, walked boldly about the sacred 
place blaspheming. In the middle of the street, 
he finds a dead body, whom none cared to re- 
move. Throughout that whole funeral course, he 
encounters but one man devoid of fear, " Whj^ 
art thou here ?" said he to this man. " Because I 
have a wife in Florence, whom I love." They 
separate. It was four in the afternoon when 
Machiavelli returns to Santa Maria Novella, and 
there he observes on the steps of the altar a 
woman of perfect beauty, overwhelmed with grief. 
She was a widow, and now lamented because she 
had only to die ! 

Such is this lugubrious picture, and certainly 
I prefer it a thousand times to the introduction 
of the Decameron. In these melancholy pages, 
shines still Florence of olden times. No ! — no 
fe.tes^ no flowers, dances, banquets — no more love 

12^ 



188 FLORENCE. 

for Florence! In her pleasures and blooming 
coronal, she is but wrapped in her shroud. To 
view her aright, contemplate her, not like Boc- 
caccio, but as did Machiavelli — poor, sad, deso- 
late, and beautiful even in her abandonment and 
sorrow, and "refusing to be comforted, because 
that now she is alone in the world, and has but 
to die!" 



CATHEDRAL OF MILAN. 

I FOUND myself in presence of the Cathe- 
dral. It was the hour of noon. A blazing sun 
fell in perpendicular rays on that mountain of 
white marble, and my dazzled vision could but 
dimly distinguish what was passing on its arid 
summits. It was a strange illusion, to which lan- 
guage is inadequate ; for in that brilliant light, I 
surely saw climbing and descending that carved 
mountain of festoons, lozenges, and arcades, a pro- 
miscuous crowd of men and angels, demons and 
martyrs, virgins and courtezans, penetrating the 
forest of spires, between the menacing towers, 
Gothic arches, pillars, and ogival has-reliefs^ in 
prayer or blasphemy, kneeling or traversing every 
part of the lofty precipice. It was a scene of com- 
plete, terrific disorder, Avholly incredible. They 
passed to and fro, assumed the most various pos- 
tures, spake all manner of tongues, as in the 
Tower of Babel. Siich is the Cathedral of Milan, 



140 CATHEDRAL OF MILAN. 

the Tower of Babel! A firm, intelligent hand 
cast the foundations, the primitive Christians de- 
posited those noble stones. In those days, archi- 
tect and mason, with heart and hand — believing 
heart and Christian hand — associated themselves 
foi> life to raise to God a holy temple which should 
recount to future ages the fervid zeal of the first 
believers. The commencement develops the no- 
blest fantasies and austerest inspirations of ancient 
Catholic genius. But the temple advanced slowly, 
while time sped swiftly. The first walls had de- 
voured many generations of architects when there 
arose on the soil of Florence the celebrated great 
movement in which Gothic art is replaced by the 
modern. Then hastened to the Dome of Milan 
all the illustrious artists of the fourteenth, fifteenth, 
and sixteenth centuries, and behold a new, mar- 
ble nation, climbing far above the primitive — a 
light, elegant people, who, with young, disdainful 
foot mount the shoulders of the first apostles, 
already covered with greenish moss of olden time. 
Then, by degrees, the renaissance retires, making 
way for a novelty more scientific, less holy. Eaf- 
faelle replaces Michael Angelo, Ariosto dethrones 
Dante. The Dome partakes of this new revolution 
to the very foundations. Once again the marble 



CATHEDRAL OF MILAN. 141 

creation changes its modes and costumes! But 
yesterday, and there was faith in these marbles; 
to-day, doubt has penetrated even their breasts of 
stone, and, with doubt, conflict, and resistance. 
Martin Luther casts his revolt even upon these 
inanimate blocks ! Meanwhile, at the foot of the 
high towers, on the earth which bears them, mul- 
tifarious revolutions are in agitation — conquerors 
of every order are passing, crying "Yictory!" 
Still, the sacred wall continues to ascend; with 
every new conqueror and new passion that 
reigns supreme, a new statue rises aloft, redolent 
of the pride, the hopes, and vanity of the victor. 
The generation that commenced this work are 
now alone forbidden to inscribe on the Dome 
their fears, their hopes, deceptions, praise, or cen- 
sure; it is only for conquerors to dare to speak 
from these heights; each man in armor, as he 
passes over the marble, draws his sabre, and con- 
verting it into a chisel, himself sculptures a statue 
in his own image and eulogy. Thus were created 
the four thousand statues that surcharge the 
Dome of Milan. Napoleon Bonaparte is the last 
who has wrought on that mountain. And how 
can such a work, the sport of such varied caprice, 



142 CATHEDRAL OF MILAN. 

be grand and complete? How is it possible to 
understand any part of a book wherein every 
mortal band has attempted to write a line, imme- 
diately interrupted by a neAV comer demanding 
bis turn ? Wbere sball we find a guide through 
such a labyrinth ? or penetrate these dim vistas? 
comprehend anght in this universal tohuhohu of 
the diversified styles, ages, passions, systems, vic- 
tories, and dreams of Italy? The honor of the 
Cologne Cathedral, for example, consists in the 
incompleteness of its original design, the struc- 
ture remaining at its first colonnades rather than 
change architects. What distinguishes the Duomo 
of Florence is, that the illustrious artists of the 
same school who commenced, also crowned the 
edifice. Unity is the life of great monuments, as 
it is of great nations, and therefore is it that on 
this Milan marble, black at its base and white at 
its summit, among this army of statues with no 
connecting link, the stern daughters of Gothic 
art, the capricious ofispring of Renaissance^ the 
unskilful imitation of antique sculpture, and the 
desperate efforts of modern art, nothing can be 
recognized in this complete, remediless confusion, 
but the scattered leaves of all kinds of miserably 
interrupted poems — Disjecti memhra poetm. 



CATHEDRAL OF MILAN. 143 

Such, meanwliile, is the illusion produced by 
these works on which entire generations have 
expended toil — such the privilege of architecture, 
the great art which rarely fails to command our 
admiration, be the structure but imposiug in 
dimensions — that, amid the strange confusion of 
four thousand voices simultaneously speaking, I 
seemed to distinguish all the words of this concert 
of giants, commenced by Charlemagne, concluded 
by Bonaparte. Yes, in imagination, I heard the 
formidable voices of the old Gothic statues in- 
toning the Hosanna in Excelsis. Next came accents 
more shrill, but more skilful, chanting the Yeni 
Creator. Other statues, with clasped hands, sang 
the battle-cry — religion had entered the domain 
of politics. Then suddenly ceased the loud war- 
chant, prayer checked its flight, and Voltairian 
doubt made heard its mocking, skeptical laugh ; 
till finally arose the mighty voice of the Emperor 
Napoleon, leaning on his sword, and intoning the 
universal Te Deiim ! — a vast concert, into which 
glide all the sonorous accents of history! Then, 
after solemn repose, the suppressed voices resume 
the more majestic Hosanna in Excelsis! This 
lofty swell, ever new, ever victorious, envelops 



144 CATHEDRAL OF MILAN. 

the holy cathedral from its base to its highest 
pinnacle, and then all these dijfterent voices are 
hushed in silence, rapt in one common adoration ! 



THE END. 



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